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"WlieGti Trisa-s ifoiiks and Priests of foxmex days, 
Apocrypha. anjcL Scrxptui'e turn' d to Tlays , 
The Testivals of Tools and Afses Tcept, 
Obeyed Boy-Bisliops aiid to crofses crept, 
Xheymade the louirmimg- Oiitrcli Qie People's xod, 
Andlield tlie gritaxirLg- Batible for a G-oci. 



.W:'ne en viruzcnt J^ystfnej, z/fs) 



ANCIENT s^.f- 

MYSTERIES 

DESCRIBED, 

ESPECIALLY THE 

CngUst) iWtracle Pa?s» 

FOUNDED ON 

APOGRVPHAL NEW TESTAMENT STORY, 

EXTANT AMONG THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS IN THE 

BRITISH MUSEUM; 

INCLUDING NOTICES OF 

ECCLESIASTICAL SHOWS, 

THE FESTIVALS OF 

FOOLS AND ASSES—THE ENGLISH BOY BISHOP 

THE DESCENT INTO HELL— THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW 

THE GUILDHALL GIANTS— CHRISTMAS CAROLS, &c. 



By WILLIAM HONE. 



WITH ENGRAVINGS ON COPPER AND WOOD. 



Is it possible the spells of Apocrypha should juggle men into such 
strange MysttriesV Shukspeure. 



LONDON: 

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM HONE, 
45, LUDGATE HILL. 

By J- M'Crcery, Tooks Court. 

1823. 




A 



fb 



%> 




PREFACE 



It is related of Johnson, by his pleasant biographer, 
that he said, ' he loved the old black letter books ; 
they were rich in matter, though their style was in- 
elegant.* Deeper read in our early writers, than the 
great moralist, an erudite antiquary of our own day* 
observes, that, * with respect to what is often absurdly 
denominated black letter learning, the taste which pre- 
vails in the present times for this sort of reading, wher- 
ever true scholarship and a laudable curiosity are found 
united, will afford the best reply to the hyper-criticisms 
and impotent sarcasms of those who, having from in- 
dolence or ignorance neglf^cted to cultivate so rich a 
field of knowledge, exert the whole of their endeavours 
to depreciate its value/ The truth of this has been 
subsequently attested by the popularity of the author 
of Waverley, who, aided by antient lore, imparts to his 
scenes and portraits of other times the truth and high 
finish of Gerard Dow and Denner, and the dignity and 
graqe of Titian and Vandyke. Need I apologize then 
for bringing together the results of recent desultory 
reading, intimately connected with that class of litera- 
ture which is especially dear to me from accidental 
acquaintance with it in childhood, and stolen intima- 



Mr. Douce, in his Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. pref. xi. 

b 



11 PREFACE. 

cies, during thirty years of a life spent in * violating, 
step after step, the circumscription by which the aristo- 
cratic compasses were again and again, with reluctant 
extension to successive greater distances, defining the 
scope of the knowledge proper for a man of my con- 
dition.' * 

A memorable period in my humble existence is the 
occasion of the ensuing sheets. On the 19th of De- 
cember 1817, the late Lord Chief Justice Ellenbo- 
rough observed, that ^ the first scenic performances 
were Mysteries or representations of incidents in Sa- 
cred Writ.' The remark induced me, about three 
years ago, to inquire somewhat on this subject, and 
in consequence of a perusal, accidentally simultane- 
ous, of the religious Coventry Plays or Mysteries in 
the British Museum, and certain of the Apocryphal 
Gospels, together with the possession of engravings by 
old masters, from scenes common to each, I hastily 
compiled and published the volume entitled, * The 
Apocryphal New Testament.' Though my main pur- 
pose in producing it was, that for which I stated it to 
be of use, namely, to explain the subjects of pictures 
and prints that ' are without explanation from any 
other source,'! and notwithstanding I conceived, that, 
so far as the Gospels were concerned, it would be re- 
garded as a work of mere curiosity, yet it was dex- 
terously construed into a cause of attack. The fierce- 
ness of the Quarterly in October 1821, roused me to 
answer the assailant, and I sent a sheet of reply to the 
press in the following month. To accompany it, but 



* Foster. f Apoc. N. Test. Preface. 




PREFACE. Ill 

as a distinct publication, the ensuing^ pages from 1^ 
to &8 inclusive, were then actually printed off, and I 
received a proof from the printer of sixteen pages more 
to conclude the tract, when abridgment of my lei- 
sure, but, above all, the subsidence of my resentment 
into profound contempt for the flagitious frauds of 
the reverend reviewer, and a conviction that those 
who were qualified to judge of his article would see 
its mendacity, determined me not to engage in po- 
lemics. Abandoning the proposed refutation, yet to- 
wards the close of last summer recollecting the por- 
tion of the Mysteries in the printer's warehouse, I 
sat down, intending to complete my notices of these 
curious dramas in a few hours, and within the limits 
that I originally assigned to myself^ the difficulty 
however of wholly relinquishing my pen, while, by fits 
and snatches, I could employ it agreeably, enlarged 
the proposed pamphlet to the present volume. 

Concerning the Coventry Mysteries^ Dugdale relates, 
in his History of Warwickshire, published in 1656, 
that * Before the suppression of the monasteries this 
city was very famous for the pageants that were play'd 
therein, upon Corpus- Christi Day (one of their ancient 
faires) which occasioning very great confluence of 
people thither from far and near, was of no small be- 
nefit thereto : which pageants being acted with mighty^ 
state and reverence by the Grey Friers, had theatres 
for the several scenes, very large and high, placed 
upon wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts of 
the city, for the better advantage of spectators, and 
contained the story of the Old and New Testament, 
composed in the old Englishe rithme, as appeareth 



IV PREFACE. 

by an ancient ilf-5'. (in Bibl. Cotton. Vesp. D. VIII.) 

intituled, Ludus Corporis Christi, or Ludus Coventrize, 
I have been told,' says Dugdale, ' by some old people, 
who in their younger years were eye-witnesses of these 
pageants so acted, that the yearly confluence of peo- 
ple to see that shew was extraordinary great, and 
yielded no small advantage to this city'.* The cele- 
brity of the performances may be inferred from the 
rank of the audiences; for, at the festival of Corpus 
Christi, in 1483, Richard III. visited Coventry to see 
the plays, and at the same season in 1492, they were 
attended by Henry VII. and his queen, by whom they 
were highly commended. 

While at the British Museum I made large extracts 
from the Coventry Manuscript mentioned by Dug- 
dale. It is remarkable, that in its entire series of 
forty mysteries there is not one from the Apocrypha 
to the Old Testament, whilst there are so many as 
eight that are paraphrases of the New Testament 
Apocrypha. Transcripts from these paraphrases com- 
pose the early part of the present publication. Some 
portions that are abridged would have been given 
entire, perhaps, had I consulted the MS. with a view 
to this use, but there is quite enough to show how 
largely the monkish playwright adopted the curious 
incidents, and the very language of the spurious Gos- 
pels — a circumstance alluded to in the Preface to the 
Apocryphal New Testament, and which operated in 
no small degree to the setting it forth. 

Concerning the scenery, machinery, dresses, and 

* Dugdale's Warwickshire, ji. 116. 



PREFACE. V 

decorations, and indeed the stage management of 
these times, little is at present known.* Yet to what 
Dugdale has said of the Coventry performances, and the 
notice from Drake's History of York, of the representa- 
tions in that city,! maybe added an account of those at 
Chester. The Mysteries acted there, also exist in the 
British Museum among the Harleian MSS. They are 
four and twenty in number, and were performed by the 
trading companies of the city. ' Every company had 
his pagiante, or parte, which pagiantes were a highe 
scafolde with two rowmes, a higher and a lower upon 
4 wheeles. In the lower they apparelled themselves, 
in the higher rowme they played, being all open on 
the tope, that all behoulders might heare and see 
them. The places where they played them was in 
every streete. They begane first at the Abay Gates, 
and when the pagiante was played, it was wheeled to 
the High Cross before the mayor, and so to every 
streete ; and so every streete had a pagiante playing 
before them, till all the pagiantes for the daye ap- 
pointed were played, and when one pagiante was 
neere ended, worde was broughte from streete to 
streete, that soe the mighte come in place thereof, 
excedinge orderlye, and all the streetes had their 
pagiante afore them, all at one time, playing together, 

* Information on some of these points may be expected from a 
forthcotning work, by the gentleman mentioned (at p. 218.) as having 
favoured his friends with a bibliomaniacal edition of the Coventry 
Pageant of the Sheremen and Taylors. I take this opportunity of 
observing, that the MS. of this mystery is that gentleman's pro- 
perty J it is erroneously represented hereafter as belonging to the 
corporation of Coventry. 

t See p. 209— IS, post. 



vi PREFACE. 

to se which playes was great resorte, and also sca- 
foldes, and stages made in thestreetes, in those places 
wheare they determined to playe their pagiantes.'* 

Respecting the multiform portion of this volume, de- 
nominated ^ Illustrations^ I have to offer in excuse 
that there is enough for good-natured readers to find 
something to be amused with, and nothing intended to 
offend those that I despair of pleasing. It is altogether 
* skimble-skamble stuff/ which, not aspiring to the 
character of an antiquarian treatise, may be allowed 
to deprecate antiquarian censure. There is little 
appearance of cohesion in the parts, and yet they 
scarcely require more than leisure to adapt and con- 
nect them according to ^ the rules of the schools,' 
with a few other particulars, and make a book. The 
Boy-Bishop, for instance, whose processions at Nicho- 
las-tide, according to Strype, * made the people so 
fond of keeping this holiday, that every parish almost 
had its St. Nicholas,' is associated with the Mys- 
teries, by the representations of these religious plays 
often taking place during his annual dignity. The 
Feast of Fools, and especially the Feast of the Ass, 
from their dramatic character, and celebration as ec- 
clesiastical performances, are equally admissible. To 

* Archdeacon Rogers's MSS. Harl. 1948, quoted in Mr. Ormerod's 
History of Cheshire, (p. 296 — 309.) In that work there is a copious 
notice conc^ning the Chester Mysteries, which were performed for 
the last time in 1574. Mr. Ormerod's information concerning 
Mysteries in general is abundantly curious and useful. 

A well written article on the * Early Drama/ with a pleasant 
notice of Mysteries, is contained in that ably conducted Journal, 
the Retrospective Review, vol. i. 



PREFACE. Vll 

be sure I have trespassed a little in the articles on the 
Council of the Trinity, and the Brethren of the Trinity 
without Aldersgate; but who, possessing a monkish 
legend in MS. or the chartulary of a dissolved frater^ 
nity, could vi^ithstand the temptation of * hitching 
mio print' a quotation or two, on a colourable oppor- 
tunity. In this, however, I acknowledge being in- 
fluenced by liking rather than judgment, and so in 
the article on the Descent into Hell. Reviewing my 
gossip on the word aroint, I confess that equity would 
compel me to dismiss it for impertinence. But it is 
printed, and its existence in these sheets is a lament- 
able proof of the ' fearful estate' of him who mounts 
a hobby without a rein : tliough there is something 
like a shadow of excuse too, for saying a little on old 
Hearne's plate as a Shakspearian authority.' 

Concerning Christmas Carols, I have not put dov^n 
a tenth of what I wished to find room for, nor so much 
as I think will weary one good hearted reader who 
remembers with what solemn pleasure he heard them 
sung in his childhood. The Pageants, though familiar 
to a few, will be new to more; and as to the account 
of the Lord Mayor's Show, and the Giants of London, 
let that citizen, who constantly sees both, and knows 
little regarding the history of either, be angry if he 
can, for being informed of several curious particulars 
respecting each. Regarding the Giants, indeed, I 
formerly inquired too much and too long in vain, to 
suppose that a few pages, occupied in authenticating 
their origin, will be unwelcome to those who are 
* merry in Guildhall^ when beards wag all.' 

In toiling through books and MSS., not in expec- 



Viu PREFACE. 

tation, but with a bare hope of discovering a few facts 
respecting manners in the olden time, the mind 
glooms on the supposition that stores of information 
perished with the destruction of the religious houses 
in the reign of Henry VIII. He who ' neither spared 
man in his rage nor woman in his lust/ spared not the 
literary collections in the libraries of the church. For 
though it appears that Henry directed a commission 
to Leland, the antiquary, to search for and preserve 
such works belonging to the dissolved monasteries and 
colleges as might rescue remarkable English events 
and occurrences from oblivion, and though Leland ac-^ 
quainted Henry that he had ' conserved many good 
authors the which otherwise had bene lyke to have 
peryshed, to no smal incommodite of good letters ; of 
the which,' he tells him, ' part remayne in the most 
magnificent lybraryes of your royal palaces; part 
also remayne in my custodier' yet he expressly recites, 
that one of his purposes w^as to expel ' the crafty co- 
loured doctryne of a rowt of Romayne bysshopps ;' 
which too plainly indicates that he * conserved* but 
little concerning ancient customs. Strype, who 
praises Henry's commission to Leland, afterwards 
breaks out, saying, ^But great pity it was, and a 
most irreparable loss, that notwithstanding this pro- 
vision, most of the ancient MS. histories and writings 
of learned British and Saxon authors were lost. Li- 
braries were sold by mercenary men for any thing 
they could get, in that confusion and devastation of 
religious houses. Bale, the antiquary, makes men- 
tion of a merchant that bought two noble libraries 
about these times for forty shillings j the books whereof 



PREFACE. iX 

served him for no other use but for waste paper; 
and that he had been ten years consuming them, and 
yet there remained still store enough for as many 
years more. Vast quantities and numbers of these 
books, banished with the monks and friars from their 
monasteries, were conveyed away and carried be- 
yond seas to booksellers there, by whole ship ladings; 
and a great many more were used in shops and kit- 
chens.' It is not surprising then, that so little remains 
from those immense collections ; or rather it is won- 
derful that so much should have escaped the general 
devastation. Yet, in the economy of the Reformation, 
the ruthless'deed was, perhaps, an essential preparation 
for the mighty knowledge that submerged the super- 
stition of a thousand years. ' Th-e papal hierarchy, from 
accident, fanaticism, and policy, pursued too often a 
spurious plan of forcing mankind to become technical 
automatons of rites and dreams, words and supersti- 
tions; and supporting a system which, if not origi- 
nally framed, was at least applied to inforce a long 
continued exertion of transferring the world into the 
hands of ecclesiastics, and too often superseding the 
Christianity of the Gospels by that of tradition, po- 
licy, half-delirious bigotry, feelings often fantastic, 
and unenlightened enthusiasm.* * Until the time of 
Luther, religion, which in principle is a pure science, 
was regarded as an art; it was the occupation of the 
clergy, who taught it as a mystery, and practised it 
as a trade. . 

fuf// 

* Mr. Turner's Hist. Ang. Saxons, vol. iii. p. 516. 



X PREFACE. 

From the manifold corruptions of religion resulted 
the gross practices and delusions which are noticed 
in the ensuing pages without comment; for the work 
is a collection of facts, not of inferences. It com- 
mences with the Coventry Mysteries ; the passages 
from the Apocryphal Gospels, whereon the scenes 
are founded, being printed beneath. By referring to 
the Glossary for words that seem difficuit, the perusal 
of the whole will be easy. 

It is proper to state that a literary gentleman of 
the principality, enabled me to mention Welsh Ca- 
rols, and favoured me with the translation of the 
Welsh Wassail Carol for St. Mary's Eve. To a bib- 
liopolical friend I am indebted for the notice of the 
Castle of Good Preservance^ which he saw in Dr. 
Macro's collection, I should with equal readiness 
acknowledge other assistance, had I received it. 
Lastly, I am bound to confess the existence of a few 
errors, not affecting the sense, that were discovered 
too late for correction, though in sufficient time to 
enable me to affirm, as a warning to others, that the 
worst editor of an author's writings is himself. 

Ludgate Hill, 

6th May, 1823. 



CONTENTS, 



Page 

I. The Birth of Mary 13 

II. Mary's Education in the Temple, and being served by 

Angels . 20 

III. The miraculous Espousal of Joseph and Mary ... 27 

IV. A Council of the Trinity and the Incarnation ... 33 
V. Joseph's Jealousy 46 

VI. Visit of Mary to Elizabeth ......... 53 

VII. The Trial of Mary and Joseph 59 

VIII. The Miraculous Birth and the Midwives 67 

SUttgtrations; ariO guffiitttns. 

I. Council of the Trinity 75 

II. The Brethren of the Holy Trinity of St. Botolph with- 
out Aldersgate 77 

III. Christmas Carols 90 

IV. Engravings of Apocryphal New Testament subjects . 107 
V. The Descent into Hell ........... 120 

VI. Hearne's Print of the Descent into Hell 138 

VII. Origin of Mysteries — Feast of Fools — Feast of the Ass, 

&c 148 

VIII. The Boy Bishop— English Mysteries ...... 193 

IX. Pageants 233 

X. Lord Mayor's Show 246 

XI. The Giants in Guildhall 363 



Addenda 277 

Glossary . . . . ; *'^' . . . 289 

Index 293 



ORDER OF THE ENGRAVINGS. 



COPPER. 

*• ^^^ • • • • • • . to face the Title, 

S. Hearne's Descent into Hell pag-e 138 

3. Giants in Guildhall , . . . 

4. Fools' Morris Dance 2^ 



WOOD. 

5. Triangular Candle . . . ^^ 
^ ^ . .7b 

6. Triune Head o^ 

oo 



100 
101 



g* j Impressions from two Christmas Carol Blocks . . 

9. 7 

10. i ' — two others 

11. Tail-piece j^^ 

13. St. Nicholas's Miracle ' j^^ 

13. Boy Bishop '......'.* 197 



MYSTERY I 



IN COTTON MS. PAGEANT VIII. 



THE BIRTH OF MARY. 



The Play commences with the speaking of a Pro- 
logue, beginning thus : — 

Cryste conserve this congregation, 
Fro' perellys past, p'sent, and futur^ 
And the p'so'nys her' pleand. 

* * * * * 

And that non oblocucyon, make this mat'er obsc'ure, 
But it may p'fite and plese, eche p'son p'sent. 

From the gynnynge, to the endynge, so to endure, 

That cryst, and every creatur', with the conceyte be content. 

The Prologue proceeds to relate, that the 'mat*er' 
is of * the modyr of mercy.' 

In fewe wurdys talkyd, that it shulde nat be ted'yous 
To ne lernyd, nyn to lewd, nyn to no man of reson, 

This is the p'cesse : — Now p'serve you Jh'us ; 

Th'for of this I yow pray, all that ben her' present. 
And tak hed to our talkyn, what we shal say ; 

I be teche yow, that lorde that is evyr omnypotent, 
To governe yow in goodnes, as he best may, 

In hevyn we may hym se. 

B 



14 

Now god, that is hevyn kynge, 
Sende us all hese der' biyssynge ; 
And to his tow'r he mote vs brynge : 
Amen, fFor charyte. 

' YSAKER,* the high priest, announces the festival, 
when all must repair to Jerusalem to sacrifice. 

' JOAKIM* enters with ANNE his wife,(^) and calls 
himself 'a substancyall man,' says he divides his 
goods into three parts, one to the temple, another to 
the ' pylg'mys,' the third for his own houshould; and 
concludes his speech by observing, that 

So shulde every curat, in this werde wyde, 

Geve a part to his channcel, I wys ; 
A part to his parocheners, that to povert slyde ; 

The tbyrd part to kepe, for hy' & his.C*) 

Joachim tells Anne that he dreads to sacrifice, for 

Be cawse that no frute of vs doth p'cede, 

I fere me grettly the prest vvole me dysspice ; 

Than grett slawndyr in the tribus of vs shulde aryse : 
But this I avow to God, with all the mekenes I can, 



[Passages paralleled; from the Apocryphal New Testament.] 



(^) Mary, i. — 1. The blessed and 
ever glorious Virgin Mary, sprung from 
the royal race and family of David, 
was born in the city of Nazareth, and 
educated at Jerusalem, in the temple 
of the Lord. 

2. Her father's name was Joachim, 
and her mother's Anna. The family 
of her father was of Galilee and the 
city of Nazareth. The family of her 
mother was of Bethlehem. 

('') 3. Their lives were plain and 



divided all their substance into three 
parts: 

4. One of which they''de voted to th^ 
temple and officers of the temple ; an- 
other they distributed among stran- 
gers, and persons in poor circum- 
stances? and the third they reserved 
for themselves and the uses of their 
own family. 

7. ^ And it came to pass, that when 
the feast of the dedication drew near, 
Joachim, with some others of his tribe, 



right in the sight of the Lord, pious went up to Jerusalem, and, at that 
and faultless before men. For they | time, Issachar was bigh-priest. 



15 

Gyff, of his mercy, he wole a chylde vs devyse, 
We shal ofFre it vp, i'to the temple, to be goddys man.(*) 

Anne declares that his words bring tears down her 
face, and endeavours to console her husband with 

I wys swete husband the fawte is mine. 

Corresponding in sentiment with him, she vows that 
if *God send frute, and it be a mayde childe,' she 
shall be a * foot mayd to mynyster' in the temple, 
and salutes Joachim, saying, 

Thryes I kysse you, with syghys ful sad. 
They inform Issachar they are come to ' sacrife.' 
Then follows this direction to the actors. 

[" Here they shal synge theis seg'no, B'n'dicta sit 
" B'a Trinitas. Jnd i' that tyme ysakar, with his 
" mi'sters, ensensyth the auter ; ^ then thei make her 
''offry'g."] 

Issachar invites all present to come up and offer, 
but he tells Joachim and Anne to stay where they 
are, that they * arn barrany and bare -/ inquires how 
they durst presume among fruitful persons; that it is 
a token they are cursed ; and finally, he rejects their 
offerings, and charges Joachim to go fast out of the 
tern pie. (^) Next is sung 
^ PATER ►$< ET FXLius !$< ET sp'us sVus. Chor, Amen. 

^Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 

(*)MARY,i. — 5. In this manner they on which account they went at every 

lived for about twenty years chastely, feast in the year to the temple of the 

in the favour of God, and the esteem Lord, 

of men, without any children, (**) 8. Who, when he saw Joachim 

6. But they vowed, if God should along with the rest of his neighbours, 

favour them with any issue, they would bringing his offerings, despised both 

devote it to the service of the Lord ; him and his offerings, and asked him, 



16 

ISSACHAR blesses the people in these words : — ■ 

Now, of god & man, blessyd be ye alle. 

Horaward agen now returne ye ; 
And in this temple abyde we sballe, 

To servyn god in trinyte. 

Joachim, greatly laments his disgrace : — 

Now wyl I go to my shepherdys, and with hem abyde ; 

& th'r evyr mor, levyn in sor'we, & in drede: 
Shame makyth many man his hed for to hyde.() 

He salutes the shepherds with ^ Ha how do ye, 
felas — how far ye & my bestys?' They answer, ^ they 
be lusty & fayr, & grettly multyply — how do ye, 
mayster ?* 

This answer touches a sore place — he tells them to 
do what they list, and see their ' bestys not stray.' 
Praying to God in great bitterness, he says of himself. 
What am I? wretche! — worse than an hownde. 

Anne also prays, and expostulates with God : — 

Why do ye thus to my' husbond, lord ; why ? why ? why ? 
for my barynes he may amend this y'self, and thou lyste, to 

mor'we. 
[Her the AvuGi&hdescendith thehefney syngyng Exultet.] 



[Passages paralleled ; from th^ Apoc. N. Test.] 



9. Why he, who had no children, 
would presume to appear amonff those 
who had ? Adding, that his offerings 
could never be acceptable to God, who 
was judged by him unworthy to have 
children ; the Scripture having said, 
Cursed is every one who shall not be- 
get a male in Israel. 

10 He further said, that he ought 
first to be free from that curse by be- 
getting some issue, and then come with 



his offerings into the presence of God. 

(^)MarYj i. — 11. But Joachim being 
much confounded with the shame of 
such reproach, retired to the shepherds 
who were with the cattle in their pas- 
tures ; 

12. For he was not inclined to re- 
turn home, lest his neighbours, who 
were present and heard all this from 
the high-priest, should publicly re- 
proach him in the same manner. 



17 

The Angel acquaints Joachim, that God, by 
making barrenness, shews " his myth & his mercye 
bothe;(*) reminds him that Sarah was ninety years 
barren and bore Isaac ;(^) that barren Rachel bore 
Joseph, 

that of Egypt was kynge,(*') 
A stronger, than Sampson ; 

that Samuel's mother was barren, till she bore him ;(') 

And, in the lyke wyse, Anne, thy blyssyd wyfF, 
Sche shal ber' a childe, schal hygth Mary,0 
Whic'h shall be blyssyd in her body, and have joys fFyff, 

be full of the holy ghost, inspired, and offered in the 
temple, (^) 



[Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(*) Mary, ii. — 1. But when he had 
been there for some time, on a certain 
day when he was alone, the angel of 
the Lord stood by him with a prodi- 
gious light, 

2. To whom, beinj; troubled at the 
appearance, the angel who had appear- 
ed to him, endeavouring to compose 
him, said ; 

3. Be not afraid, Joachim, nor trou- 
bled at the sight of me, for I am an 
angel of the Lord sent by him to you, 
that I might inform you, that your 
prayers are heard, and your alms as- 
cended in the sight of God. 

4. For he hath surely seen your 
shame, and heard you unjustly re- 
proached for not having children ; for 
God is the avenger of sin, and not of 
nature ; 

5. And so when he shuts the womb 
of any person, he does it for this rea- 
son, that he may in a more wonderful 
manner again open it, and that which 
is bom appear to be not the product of 
lust, but the gift of God. 

('') 6. For the first mother of your 
nation Sarab, was she not barren even 



till her eightieth year ; And yet even 
in the end o/ her old age brought forth 
Isaac, in whom the promise was made 
of a blessing to all nations. 

(f) 7 . Rachel also, so much in favour 
with God, and beloved so much by 
holy Jacob, continued barren for a 
long time, yet afterwards was the mo- 
ther of Joseph, who was not only go- 
vernor of Egypt, but delivered many 
nations from perishing with hunger. 

(^) 8. Who, among the judges, was 
more valiant than Sampson, or more 
holy than Samuel ? And yet both their 
mothers were barren. 

(^) 9. But if reason will not convince 
you of the truth of my words^ that 
there are frequent conceptions in ad- 
vanced years, and that those who were 
barren have brought fortli to their 
great surprise; therefore Anna your 
wife shall bring you a daughter, and 
you shair call her name Mary; 

(^) 10. She shall, according to your 
vow, be devoted to the Lord from her 
infancy, and be filled with the Holy 
Ghost from her mother's womb ; 

11. She shall neither eat nor drink 



18 

And as sche sc'hal be bor' of a barrany body, 

So, of her, schal be bor', with out natur', J'hus, 
That schal be savyo', vnto al man kende,(') 

' In tokyn' he prophesies to Joachim, that he shall 
meet Aime at the gyldyd gate of Jerusalem. C') 

Joachim takes his leave of the shepherds, who 
being glad to see his spirits revive, say. 

We schal make vs so mery, now this is be stad, 
That, a myle on yo' way, ye schal her* vs synge. 

The Angel appears to Anne, tells her that God 
hath heard her prayers, that she shall meet her hus- 
band at the ' goldyn gate,* and conceive, and bear a 
child, whose destiny he foretels, (*") and Anne re- 
joices^ 

[Her go'th the Aungel agen to hefne.'] 



[Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



any thing which is unclean, nor shall 
her conversation be without among the 
common people, but in the temple of 
the Lord; that so she may not fall un- 
der any slander or suspicion of what is 
bad. 

(*) Mary, ii. — 12. So in the process 
of her years, as she shall be in a mira- 
culous manner born of one that was 
barren, so she shall, while yet a virgin, 
in a way unparalleled, bring forth the 
Son of the most High God, who shall 
be called Jesus, and, according to the 
signification of his name, be the Sa- 
viour of all nations. 

C*) 13. And this shall be a sign to 
you of the things which I declare, 
namely, when you come to the golden 
gate of Jerusalem, you shall there 
meet your wife Anna, who being very 



much troubled that you returned no 
sooner, shall then rejoice to see you. 

(<=) iii. — 1. Afterwards the angel ap- 
peared to Anna his wife, saying? Fear 
not, neither think that which you see is 
a spirit ; 

2. For I am that angel who hath 
offered up your prayers and alms be- 
fore God, and am now sent to you, 
that I may inform you, that a daughter 
will be born unto you, who shall be 
called Mary, and shall be blessed 
above all women. 

6. Arise therefore, and go up to Je- 
rusalem, and when you shall come ^o 
that which is called the golden gate 
(because it is gilt with gold), as a sign 
of what I have told you, you shall meet 
your husband, for whose safety you 
have been so much concerned. 



ig 

Joachim and Anne meet in great joy, and he gives 
her a ' kusse of clennesse.* (^) 

The drama concludes with an intimation that it is 
their intention to go home, 

To thank god, that sytt in tron', 
That thus hath sent us his grace. 



^Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(»). Mary, iii. — 8. ^ According 
therefore to the command of the an- 
gel, both of them left the places where 
they were, and when they came to 
the place specified in the angel's pre- 



diction, they met each other. 

1 1. ^ So Anna conceived,and brought 
forth a daughter, and, according to the 
angel's command, the parents did call 
her name Mary. 



20 



MYSTERY II. 

IN COTTON MS. PAGEANT IX. 



MARY'S EDUCATION IN THE TEMPLE, 
AND BEING SERVED BY ANGELS. 



The Play opens by Contemplation speaking a Pro- 
logue beginning 

Sovereynes ; ye have sen shewyd you befor', 

Of Joachym & Anne, both ther'e holy metynge ; 

How o' lady was conseyved, and how she was bor' ; 
We passe ovyr that^ — brefFnes of tyme consyderynge. 

The Prologue announces the entrance of Mary, 
and how 



as a childe of iij yer' age, her' she schal apper, 



That holy mater we wole declare, 
Tyl fFortene yer*, how sche did far' : 
Now of you' speche I pray yow spar, 
All that ben in this place. 
[Her Joachym and Anney with our lady he twen hem, beyng 
al in whytej as a childe of iij yer age, pre&ente her' in to 
the temple ; thus seyng Joachym, (^)] 



[Passages paralleled; from the Apoc. N. Test] 

iv. — 1. And when three 
:pired, and the time of 
her weaning complete, they brought 



(*) Mary, iv. — 1. And when three I the Virgin to the temple of the Lord 
years were expired, and the time of with offerings. 



21 

Joachim exclaims * Blyssyd be our lord, fFayr 
ffrute have we now/ and he reminds his wife of their 
vow : — 

The age of Mary, our dowter, is yers three, 
ThYor', to thre p'sonys and on god, lete vs her p'sent. 

Anne assents, and says to Mary, 

Dowter, the aungel (told) us ye shulde be a qwen ; 

Woll ye go se that lord yo' husbond schal ben ; 
& lerne for to love hym ; and lede w't hy* yo' lyff ? 

Telle yo' ffadyr & me her, yo' Answer let sen, 
Wole ye be pur' maydy', & also goddys wyff ? 

Mary answers, that as her father and mother have 
vowed. 



so ssothly wow I 



To be goddys chast seruaunt, whil lyfF is mine ; 

But to be goddys wyff 1 was never wurthy 
I am the sympelest that ever was born of body ; 

I haue herd you sey'd god schulde haue a modyr swete. 
That 1 may leve to se hir', god graunt me, for his mercy, 

& abyl me to ley my handys vndyr hir' fayr fete. 

[Et genuflectet ad deum,] 

Joachim encourages Mary by observing, 

I wys dowter it is wel seyd 

Ye answer & ye wer' twenty yer' olde. 

Joachim and Anne go to Issachar, and Joachim 
addresses him thus : 

Her' p'nce of Prestes, 8c it plese you, 

We, that wer' barryn, god hath sent a childe, 

To offre her to goddys service we made our' a vow ; 
Her' is the same mayde, mary most mylde. 

C 



ISSACHAR tells Joachim he recollects that he re- 
proached them, but he rejoices they are now among 
the fruitful ; and he compliments Mary with 
Ye have a gracyous face. 

Joachim, then bowing with great reverence, says 
that to 

fFadyr, & son, & holy gost, 
On god, & p'sonys thre, 

he offers Mary to be a servant for ever. 

Anne encourages Mary to go up to the ^ Pre'st.' 
She asks their blessing : in answer to which Joseph 
says, ' In nomine patris SC Jilii 8( spWis s'c'i, whereto 
Mary answers, * Amen ; now ye good modyr :' Anne 
repeats ' In nomine, &V.' Mary thanks them, and 
intreats forgiveness if ever she offended them 

[Et explexendo osculabit p'rem 4" mrem.l 

Joachim and Anne congratulate themselves on 
having ' suche a chylde.* 

IsSACHAR tells Mary that she shall be the accepted 
daughter of ' god eternall,' and 

If the fyfte'ne grees thou may ascende 
It is miracle, if thou do. (=*) 

[Maria S^ sic deinceps usq, adfin^ xv** psalmor\'} 

Mary repeats the degrees in quadrats, each pre- 
faced by a Latin line. 

[Passages paralleled; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(0 Mary, iv.— 2. And there were 
about the temple, according to the 
fifteen Psalms of Degrees, fifteen stairs 
to ascend. 



3. For the temple being built in a 
mountain, the altar of burnt-ofi«ring, 
which was without, could not be come 
near but by stairs. 



23 

Ep'us, A gracyous lord ! this is a mervelyous thynge 
That we se her' all in sygt, 
A babe of ihre' yer age so zynge, 

To come vp these greeys so vp right. 
It is an hey meracle. ("') 

Mary inquires. 

How I shall be rewlyd in goddys hous ? 

ISSACHAR answers, that God gave ten command- 
ments, which may be comprised in twoj first, the 
love of God : — 

Love flPadyr, sone, and holy gost ; 

Love God the fadyr, for gevyth myght ; 

Love God the sone, for he gevyth wysd'ni the most; 

Love God the holy gost, for he gevyth love and lyght ; 

Thre' personnys and on god. =^ * ^ 

Than, love thou evyV crystyn, as y'r self. 

He further informs her that she shall have ' may- 
denys fyve/ Meditac'on, Contrysson, Compassyon, 
Clennes, and Fruyssyon. Mary says. 

Her' is an holy fFelacha'pp I fele ; 

I am not wurthy amonge he' to be : — 
Swete systers, to yow all, I knele 

To receyve me ; I beseche yo'r charyte. 

[Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(*) Mary, iv.— 4. The parents of 
the blessed Virgin and infant Mary 
put her upon one of these stairs ; 

5. But while they were putting oflf 
their clothes, in which they had tra- 
velled, and according to custom put- 
ting on some that were more neat and 
clean. 

6. In the mean time the Virgin of 



the Lord in such a manner went up all 
the stairs one after another, without 
the help of any to lead her or lift her, 
that any one would have judged from 
hence, that she was of perfect age. 

7. Thus the Lord did, in the iufancy 
of his Virgin, work this extraordinary 
work, and evidence by this miracle 
how great she was tike to be hereafter. 



24 

Ep'us. — They schal dowter ; And, on the tother syde, se 

Ther' ben sefne prestys in dede, 
To schryve, to teche, and to mynystryn to the ; 

To lerne the goddys lawys, and scryptur' to rede. 
Mary. — Fadyr, knew I her' namys well wer' I. 
Ep^us. — Ther is Dyscressyon, Devoc'on, Dylexc'on, and De- 
liberac'on. 

They schall tende upon you besyly, 
VV't Declarac'on, Determynac'on, Dyvynac'on, 
Now go ye maydenys, to yo'r occupac'on ; 

And loke ye tende this childe tendyrly, 
& ye, serys, knelyth, & I schall gyve yow goddy's benyson. 

In no'ne pr'is & filii & sp'us s'ci. 
[Et recedent cv^ minhtris suis v'es virgines dicent. Amen.] 

Joachim and Anne leave Mary, who says to her 
maidens, 

Syster', ye may go do what ye schal 

To serve God ; fyrst her' is al my thought; 
Beforn this holy awter' on my knes I fall. 

She prays for obedience and suitable virtues. 

Her' the aungel bryngyth mannay in a cowp of gold, lyke to 
confecc'ons; the hefne syngynge: the angel seyth 

Merueyle not^ mekest mayd'on, of my mynystrac'on ; 

I am a good Aungel, sent of god All myght, 
Wt angelys mete, for yo'r sustentac'on ; 

Ye to receyve it ; ffor natural myght, 

We aungellys schul serve yow, day and nyght. 
Now fede yow th' with, in goddys name ; 
We schal lerne yow the lyberary of our' lordys lawe lyght. 

For my sawys in yow, shewyth sygnes of shame. 

Mary, accepting the food, observes. 



25 

All manner of savowrs in this mete I fynde ; 
I felt nevyr none so swete, ner so redolent, (f) 

The Angel acquaints her that, at ' alle howrys,' 
angels shall attend on her. 

Mary is greatly astonished, and she is thus allite- 
ratively addressed by the Angel 

In yo'r name, Maria, ffyve letterys we han : — 

Mt* — Mayde, most mercy full, & mekest i' mende ; 

^^ — Auerte of the Anguysch, that Adam began; 

^* — Regina, of Regyon, reyneynge w't owty' ende ; 

3i»— Innocent, be Influens of Jesse's kende ; 

H» — Aduocat, most autentyk, yo'r Antecer Anna, 

Hefne & helle her' kneys down bende, 

Whan this holy name of yow is seyd Maria. 
Maria. — I qwake grettly, for dred, to her' this com'endac'on ; 
. Good swete Aungel why wole ye sey thus? 

AungelL — For ye schal, herafter, have a salutac'on 
That schall this excede : it is seyde, amonge rs. 
The deyte that dede shall determyn, & dyseris ; 

Ye schal nevyr, lady, be lefte here a lone. 

Mary, — I crye ye mercy lorde and thin' erthe cus ; 

Recomendynge me to that godhyd, that is tryne,. i' tro'ne. 

His osculet terra' , Her* schal corny n, alwey, an Aungel^ w't 
dyvers p^sents, goynge S^ comyng, 3^ in the tyme thei schal 
synge, in hefne, this hy'pne J'hu corona Virginii. And, 
off that J corny th a mi'st\fro the busschop, w't a p*s*ets 



[Passages 'paralleled ; from the A^oc, N. Test.] 



(*) Mary, v. l. But the Virgin of 
the Lord, as she advanced in years, 
increased also in perfections, and ac- 
cording to the saying of the Psalmist, 
her father and mother forsook her, but 
the Lord took care of her. 



2. For she every day had the con- 
versation of angels, and every day re- 
ceived visions from God, vyhich pre- 
served her from all sorts of evil, and 
caused her to abound with all good 
things. 



26 

Mary receives the refreshment with thanks, but 
gives it to her maidens, requiring them to bestow 
what they leave on ^ po'r folk faryn god.' 

Contemplation speaks the following 

Epilogue, 
Lo ! sofreynes, her ye have seyn'. 

In the temple, of our lady es presentac'on ; 
She was nevyr occapyed in thyngs veyn, 

But evyr besy, in holy ocupacyon. 
And we be seche yow, of your pacyens, 

That we pace these maters so lythly away ; 
If thei shulde be do with good prevydens, 

Eche on wolde sufFyce for an hoole day. 

Now schal we p'cede to her dissponsac'on, 

Which, after this, was xiiij yeV ; 
Tyme sufficyth not to make pawsac'on. 
Hath pacyens w't vs, we be sech yow her'. 
And, in short spas. 
The parlement of hefne sone schal ye se, 
& how goddys son com' man schal be, 
And how the salutac'on after' schal be, 
Be goddys holy gras. 



27 



MYSTERY III. 



THE MIRACULOUS ESPOUSAL OF MARY 
AND JOSEPH. 



IsSACHAR, the * BUSSHOPP/ enters, and requests at- 
tention from the audience in an address beginning 

Lystenyth Lordyngs both hye and lowe. 

He says, ^ The lawe of god byddyth this sawe' 

That at xiiij yer' of age 

Every damesel what so sche be 

To the encrese of mor' plente 

Shulde be browght in good degr' 
On to her spowsage. Q 

Joachim and Anne bring Mary to Issachar, who, 
supposing she is come to choose a ^ spowse,* wel- 
comes her. 

Mary says that she is not against the law, but that 
she will * levyn evyr in chastyte.' 



[Passage paralleled; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(*) Mary, v. — 4* At that time tbe 
high-priest made a public order, Tliat 
all the virgins who had public settle- 
ments in the temple, and were come 
to this age, should return home, and, 



as they were now of a proper matu= 
rity, should, according to the custom 
of their country, endeavour to be mar- 
ried. 



S8 

ISSACHAR inquires why she will ^ not to weddyng 
go?' 

Mary relates that her father and mother ' were 
bothe baryn ;' that 

Bycause they hadde nothyr frute nor chylde, 
Reprevyd thei wer' of wykkyd and wylde ; 

that they vow'd^ if they had a child, it should be de- 
dicated to the service of God ; — 

He herd her longe p'y's, 

& than sent hem both seed and flowV; 
Whan I was born in her bow'r 

To the temple offryd I was ; 

and dedicated to chastity. (^) 

ISSACHAR declares that the law is express, that 
all maydens should go to the spowsing^ that her 
Parents are not to blame for vowing, in their barren- 
ness, to dedicate their * frute;* that to make a vow 
to God is lawful by scripture, and to observe the law 
also is needful 3 and he beseeches the advice of the 
Priests. 

A Priest advises that they all pray to God directly, 
and that they shall begin Veni CREATOR SP'US. 

lAnd whan veni creat' is doin, the buschop shal seyng Now 

LORD GOD OF LORDYS WHYSEST OF AlL &c/] 



IPassages paralleled ; rom the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(») Mary, v.~5. To which com- 
mand, though all the other virgins 
readily yielded obedience, Mary the 
Virgin of the Lord alone answered, 
that she could not comply with it, 

6. Assigning these reasons, that both 



she and her parents had devoted her to 
the service of the Lord ; and besides, 
that she had vowed virginity to the 
Lord, which vow she was resolved 
never to break through by lying with 
man. 



29 



He then prays to 'the lorde, knelynge on kne/ 
for a solution of this * dowteful dowte.* (^) 

An Angel appears and acquaints the Bishop that 
his prayer ' is herd to hyg hevyn halle ;' that God 
hath sent him to tell him what to do in the dilemma ; 
and he desires the Bishop to 

Take tent, & undyrstond, 

This is goddys owyn byddyng, 
That all kynsmen of Dauyd the kyng, 

To the temple shul brynge, her' an offryng, 
Wt whyte yardys in their honde. 

Loke wele what tyme thei offer' ther', 
All lier' yardys in their hand then take ; 

Take hede whose yerde doth blome and ber', 
And he shal (be) the niaydenys make-C") 



[Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(*) Mary, v.— 7. The high-priest 
beiug hereby brought into a difficulty, 

8. Seeing he durst neither on the 
one hand dissolve the vow, and disobey 
the Scripture, which says, Vow and 

pay? 

9. Nor on the other hand introduce 
a custom, to which the people were 
strangers, commanded 

10. That at the approaching feast all 
the principal persons both of Jerusalem 
and the neighbouring places should 
meet together, that he might have their 
advice, how he had best proceed in so 
difficult a case. 

11. When they wereaccordingly met, 
they unanimously agreed to seek the 
Lord, and ask counsel from him on this 
matter. 

12. And when they were all engaged 
in prayer, the high priest, according to 
the usual way, went to consult God, 

13. And immediateJy there was a 
voice from the ark and the mercy- 
seat, which all present heard, that it 
must be inquired or sought out by a 



prophecy of Isaiah, to whom the Vir- 
gin should be given and be betrothed ; 

14. For Isaiah saith, there siiall come 
forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, 
and a flower shall spring out of its 
root, 

15. And the Spirit of the Lord shall 
rest upon him, the Spirit of Wisdom 
and Understanding, the Spirit of Coun- 
sel and Might, the Spirit of Know- 
ledge and Piety, and the Spirit of the 
fear of the Lord shall fill him. 

16. Then, according to this pro- 
phecy, he appointed, that all the men 
of the house and family of David, who 
were marriageable, and not married, 
should bring their several rods to the 
altar, 

(^) \ 7. And out of whatsoever person's 
rod after it was brought, a flower 
should bud forth, and on the top of it 
the Spirit of the Lord should sit in the 
appearance of a dove, he should be the 
man to whom the Virgin should be 
given and be betrothed. 



D 



so 

The Bishop orders ^ Proclamacion' to be made ac- 
cordingly, and Joseph, hearing the announcement, 

savs, 

In gret labor*, my lyfF I lede, 

Myn' ocupasy'on lyth in many place, 
For fFebylnesse of age my Jorney I may not spede, 

I thank the, gret god*, of thi grace. 

Joseph lies down on the ground from weariness, 
and exclaims. 

Age and febylnesse doth me embras, 
That I may nother well goe ne stond. 

Proclamation is made that MarY is to be married 
to one of the house of David, who are required to 
appear before the Bishop : He is waiting for them, 
the Officer says, and 

He byddyth yow, ferthermor', in bandys that ye hent, 
A fayr white yerde, every'ch of yow ye bryng. 

Joseph. — Benedicite ! I cannot vnder stande 

What our p'nce of prests doth me'n, 
That every man shuld come & brynge with hy' a whande, 

Abyl to be maryed that is : Not I !— So ! — Mote I then ? 

I have be' maydon evyr, and evyr mor' wele ben ; 
I chaungyd not yet, of all my long lyfF, 

& now to be maryed ! s'n man wold wene, 
It is a straunge thynge, an old man to take a yonge wyff ! 

But, nevyr the lesse, no doute, of we must, forth to towne. 
Now neybors 8c kynnysmen lete us forth go : 

I shal take a wand in my hand, and cast of my gowne, 
Yf 1 falle, then I shalle, gronyn for wo. 



31 

Ho so take away my staff, I say he wer' my fo ; 
Ye be men that may wel ren, go ye be for ; 

I am old, & also colde, walkyng doth me wo ; 
Th'rfore now, wole I so, my staff holde, I this jurny to wor*. 

The Bishop explains to the men of the house of 
David the cause of his assembling them, and why 
each was commanded to bear a wand :-— 

All yo' roddys ye shal brynge vp to me, 

&, on hese rodde, that the holy gost is syttynge. 
He shal the husbonde of this ma'y be. 

[Hie portent v'gas.'] 
Joseph.— 'It shal not be, I ley a grotte ; 
I shal a byde behynde p*uyly. 
Now wolde God I wer' at hom, in my cote ; 
I am a schamyd to be seyn, veryly. 

Several make their offering. The last man desires 
Joseph to bring up his offering, accuses him of 
tarrying behind, and says, ' Com on man; for shame!' 

Joseph. — Com ? ya! ya! god help, full fayn I wolde, 
But I am so agyd, and so olde, 
That both my leggs gyn to folde ; 
I am ny almost lame.( ) 

The Bishop says he can * no sygne a spy,' and 
proposes to go to prayer again, C') to which it is an- 
swered, that 



[Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 
sides presented liis. 



(*) Mary, vi.— i. AiDong the rest 
there was a mm named Joseph, of the 
house and family of David, and a per- 
son very far advanced in years, who 
drew back his rod, when every one be- 



C) 2. So that when nothing appear- 
ed agreeable (o the heavenly voice, the 
high-priest judged it proper to consult 
God again, 



32 

He brought not up his rodde trewly, 

To whom the mayd howyth to be raaryed her. (a) 
Ep'us. — Whath, Joseph ! why stande ye ther' by hynde ? 

I wis, ser, ye be to blame. 
Joseph. — Ser I kan not my rodde fynde, 

To come th'r in trovvth me thynkyht shame. 

[Ep'us comi/th t hens, J 
Ep^uSj — Offyr up yo' rodde, ser^ in goddys name ; 

Why do ye not as men yow pray ? 
Joseph. — Ser, he may euyl go that is ner lame ; 

In soth I com' as fast as I may. 

Joseph, when he presents his rod, prays to be 
acquitted of sin : laments that he can scarcely lift 
his hands 5 and,on a sudden, exclaims with astonish- 
ment, 

Lo ! lo ! lo ! what se ye now ? 

Ep'us. — A mercy ! mercy ! mercy ! lord, we crye ! 
The blyssyd of god we see art thou ! 

[«^ clama't o'es Wbcy m^cy.'] 
A gracyous god, in hevyn trone ! 
Ryht wundyrful thi werkys be. 

Her' may we se a merveyl one, 
A ded stok beryth flours fFre. 

Joseph, in hert, with outen mone. 
Thou mayst be blyth, with game & gle, 

A mayd to wedde, thou must 'gone, 
Be this meracle I do wel se ; 
Mary is her' name. 

IP assages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(*) Mary, vi. — 3. Who answered, 
that he to whom the Virgin was to be 
betrothed was the only person of those 



who were brought together, who had 
not brought his rod. 
4. Joseph therefore was betrayed. 



33 

Joseph. — What ! shuld I wedde ? god for bede I 
I am an old man, so god me spede, 
& with a wyff, now to levyn in drede, 
It wor' neyther sport ner game. 

Ep'us — ^Agens God, Joseph, thou mayst not stryye ; 
God wyl' that thou a wyfF haue. 
Tliis fayr mayde shal be thi' wyve ; 
She is buxum, & whyte as laue. 

Joseph, — A ! shuld I have her, ye lese my lyfF. 
Alas ! der god, shuld I now rave ? 

An old man may nevyr thryfF 
With a yonge wyfF; so God me saue! 

Nay, nay, ser' lett bene ; 

Shuld I now, in age, beg y'ne to dote, 
If I her chyde, she wolde clowte my cote, 
Bier' my (ey') & pyke out a mote, 

Sc thus oftyn tymes it is sene. 

The Bishop tells Joseph that God hath assigned 
Mary to him, and will not be opposed. 

Joseph assents, and, turning to the Virgin, says, 

But, fayr maydon, I thee p'y, 

Kepe thee clene as I shal me, 
I am a man of age ; 

Therfor', ser busshop, I wyl, that ye wete. 

That in bedde we shul nevyr mete ; 

iFor I wys, mayden swete. 
An old man may not rage. 

Ep'us. — ^ This holyest virgyn shalt thou maryn now ; 
Your rodde floreschyth fayrest, that man may se. 

[^ hi* ca!tet, B'tid'c'a sit h'a fnitas.'] 



34 



The hole gost-we se, syttyht on a bow;(*) 
Now yeld we all preysing to the trenyte. 
^ Joseph ; wele ye have this maydon to yo' wyfJ^ 
& her* hono', & kepe, as ye howe to do ? 
Joseph. — Nay ser, so mole I thryfF, 
I haue ryght no nede therto. 
Ep'us. — Joseph 5 it is goddys wyl it shuld be so ; 
Sey after me, as it is skyl. 
Joseph, — Here, and to p'forme his wyl, 1 bow thereto, 
fFor all thyi.ge owyght to ben at his wyl. 
Ep'us <%• ide^ Joseph. 
Sey thou after me : — Her I take thee Mary to wyflp. 

To hauy' to holdyn, as God his wyll with ws wyl make, 
& as long as be thwyn us, leftyght our' lyff, 

To loue yow as my selfF, my trewth I you take. 
Mine ad Mariam sic dicens. 
Ep'us. — Mary ; wole ye haue this man. 

And hym to kepyn, as yo' lyff? 
Man'fl.— In the tenderest wyse, fadyr, as I kan, 

& with all my wyttys fFyff. 
Epulis. — Joseph ; with this ryng now wedde thi wyff, 

& be her hand, now, thou her' take. 
Joseph. — Ser, with this rynge, I wedde her ryff, 
& take her' now her', for my make. 
Ep*us. — Mary, mayd, with outyn mor' slryfF, 

On to thi spowse, thou hast hym take.C') 
Maria, — In chastyte, to leden my lyff, 
I shal hym nevyr for sake, 

[Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(») Mary, vi.— 5. For, when he did 
bring his rod, and a dove coming from 
Heaven pitched upon tlie top of it, 
every one plainly savp, that the Virgin 
was to he betrothed to liim ; 



(*>) 6. Accordingly, the usnal cere- 
monies of betrothing being over, he 
returned to his own city of Bethlehem, 
to set his house in order, and make the 
needful provisions for the marriage. 



35 

But evyr with hym a byde ; 
And, jentyll spowse, as ye an seyd, 
lete me levyn as a clene mayd, 
I shal be trewe, be not dysmayd, 

Both terme, tyme, and tyde. 

Ep'us. — Her' is the holyest mat'remony, that evyr was, in this 
werde : 
The hyg names of our lord we wole now syng hy, 
We all wole this solempn dede record 

Devowtly. [Alma chorus d'ni n'ne pangat no'i^a summ\'] 
^ Now goth hom all, in godys name, 
Wher as yo' wonyng was befor : 
Maydenys, to lete her go a lone it wor* shame. 

It wold hevy you' herts sor* ; 
Ye shal blysse the tyme that sche was bor'. 
Now loke at hom her brynge. 

Maria. — To have you' blyssyng ffadyr I falle yow be for'. 

Ep^us. — He blesse yow that hath non hendyng ; 
In noi'e p'ris S^Jilii 8^ sp'us s*ci. 

Ep^us. — ^ Joseph ; thi selph art old of age, 

And the wyff of age is yonge, 
&, as we redyn, in old sage. 

Many man is sclepyr of tonge ; 
Therfor, euyl langage for to swage. 

That yo' good fame may leste longe, 
iij damysellys schul dwelle with yow i' stage. 

With thi wyff, to be evyr mor a monge, 
8c schal these iij her take : 

Susanne, the fyrst, schal be ; 

Rebecca, the secunde, schal go with the ; 

Sephor' the thrydde. Loke that, ye thre. 
This maydon nevyr ye for sake. 



36 

The ^maydenys' declare their readiness to go. 
Mary entreats, and obtains, the blessing of her pa- 
rents, and Anne says to her, 

I pray to God thee save ; 
I pray thee, mary, my swete chylde, 
Be lowe, & buxhum, meke, & mylde, 
Sad, & sobyr, & nothyng wylde, 

& goddys blyssynge thou haue. 

Joseph tells Mary that his kindred will go home 
before her; that not being rich, he has no house, and 
he wishes her to abide there, and worship god ; Mary 
assents, determining to 

" sey the holy Psalme of Dauyth, 

Whiche book is clepyd the savvter'. 

Joseph having departed, MyVRY appears, saying, 

I haue seyd sum of my savvter, & her I am, 
At this holy psalme in dede, 
B'n'dixisti di'ce' terram tuam: 

In this holy labor, lord, me spede. 

When Joseph returns, he addresses her with — 

Mary wyflf, & mayd, most gracyous : 
Displese yow not, I pray yow, so long I haue be ;' 

I have hyryd for us a lytyl praty hous, 
& ther in, ryght hesely, levyn wole we. 

He invites her, and her maidens, to follow, and 
says, 

1 must gon owth hens fer ye' fro, 

I wyll go laboryn, in fer co'ntre,(') 
With trewth, to maynteyn our housholde so. 

[Passage paralleled; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 
(^) Protevan. viii. — 16. I must go to mind my trade of building. 



37 

This ix monthis thou seyst me nowth ; 

Kepe the clene, my jentyl spowse, 

& all thi maydenys in thi howse^ 

That evyl langage I her not rowse, 
For hese love that all hath wrought. 

Mary prays God to speed him, and concludes, 
with 

Gracyous God, my mayden hed saue 
Euyr clene, in chastyte. 



38 



MYSTERY IV. 



IN COTTON MS. PAGEANT XI. 



A COUNCIL OF THE TRINITY 
AND THE INCARNATION. 



Contemplation begins the Play with a 

Prologue. 

Fowr thowsand, sex vndryd, four yer, I telle, 

Man for his oflfens, & fowle foly, 
Hath leyn yer% in the peynes of helle, 

And wer' wurthy to ly', there in, endlesly, 
But thanne shuld perysche thi grete mercye. 
****** 

Wolde God thou woldyst (leave) thi hefne myghty, 

& com down her' in to erth, 
&. levyn yers thre & threttye, 

thyn famy't folke, with thi fode, to fede, 
To staunche thi thryste, lete thi syde blede, 

ffor erste, wole not be made redempVon, 

Firtutes. — The Aungel, lord, thou made so gloryous, 
Whos synne hath mad hy' a devyl in helle, 
He mevyd man to be so contraryous, 

Man repentyd, & he, in his obstynacye, doth dwelle. 



3§ 

Virtue prays God to repel the malice of the 
devil, and take man into grace. 

(Stib comes forward, saying, that the supplications 
of all have reached him. 

Truth tells God he will not leave him — reminds 
God that he promised, when Adam sinned, * that he 
shulde deye & go to heile* — that to restore him is 
impossible, and prays that he be tormented for ever. 

Mercy intercedes to God for compassion, says, 
that all heaven and earth cry for mercy, and calls the 
devil ' a helle hownde.' 

Justice marvels what moves Mercy so much; and 
assigns as a good reason for man's eternal punish- 
ment. 

That man having offended God, who is endless, 
Therfore, his endles punchement may nevyr sees ; 

Also, he forsoke his maker, that made hym of clay. 
And the devyl to his maysi' he ches, 

Shulde he be savyd ? nay ! nay ! nay ! 

Mercy says, that there is too much vengeance in 
Justice — that the ' frelnesse' of mankind should be 
considered — and that the mercy of God is without 
end. 

Peace exhorts them not to quarrel, and says that 
she approves Mercy's supplication — 

For, yff mannys sovvle shulde abyde in helle, 
Be twen god & man euyr shulde be dyvysyon, 
And than myght not I, pes, dwelle, 

She proposes to refer the whole to God, to which 



40 

the others assent, and jrtltU£l (GOD THE Son) enter- 
ing, Peace says, 

Her is God ! now her' is vnyte ; 
Hefne & erth is plesyd with pes. 

God the Son is inclined to Peace. He says, that 

If Adam had not deyd, peryschyd had ryghtwysnes ; 

. And also, trewlh had be' lost ther by: 

Giff another deth come not, mercy shulde perysch, 

Than pes wer' exyled fFynyaly; 
So twe>n delhis must be, yow fowr to cherysch. 
^ But he that shal deye ye, must knawe, 

That, in liym, may be non inlquyte, 
That helle may holde hym be no lawe. 

But, that he may pas, at hese lyberte, 
Ower sw'}rhe, on his p'vyde, & se ; 

And hese deth, for mannys deth, schal be redemp'con. 
All hefne, & erthe, seke now ye : 

Plesyth it yow this con'clusyon ? 

Veritas. — I trowth, hane sowte the erthe, with out & with inne, 
&, in sothe, there kan non be fownde. 
That is of o day b}'rth, with owt synne ; 
Nor, to that deth, wole be bownde, 
M'i'a, — I, mercy, have ronne the hevynly regyon rownde, 
And ther is non of that charyte. 
That, ffor man, wole sufFre a deadly wounde ; 
So I can nott wete how, this schal be. 

Justicia. — Sur' ; I can fynde non sufficyent ; 

ffor servauntys vn profytable we be, ech on ; 
He love nedyth to be ful ardent. 

That, for man, to helle wolde gon. 
Pax. — ^That God may is non but on ; 

Therfor, this, is be hys a vyse ; 



41 

He that gaff this co'nsell, lete hy' geve the comforte a loii, 
For the conclusyon, in hym, of all these lyse. 
Jplfm.^. — It peyneth me, that man I mad, 

That is to seyn, peyne I must suffre for. 

H couni^el o£ tfje tcinite, must be had, 

Whiche of us shal man restor'. 
^Mt* — In your wysdani, son, man was mad thor, 
And in wysdam was his temptac*on, 
Therfor, sone, sapyens ye must ordeyn her' for', 
& se how, of man, may be salvac'on, 
5Fl(iU^» — ffadyr ; he, that schal do this, must be both god & man ; 
Lete me se how I may wer' that wede ; 
And syth, in my wysdam, he began, 
I am redy to do this dede. 
^P^U^ l^'c'u^. — h the holy gost, of yow tweyn do p'cede ; 
This charge I wole take on me ; 
I, love, to your lover, schal yow lede ; 
This is the assent of our unyte. 
M'ia, — Now is the loveday mad, of us fowr, fynia'ly : 
Now may we leve in pes, as we wer wonte, 
Misericordia ^ Veritas ohvianeruat sibi 
Justicia ^ pax osculate sunt 

[<5f hie osculabunt pariter omnes,'] 

God the Father directs the Angel Gabriel to 
go to Mary at Joseph's, in Galilee 5 and GoD THE 
Son instructs Gabriel to 

Say that she is with owte wo, & ful of grace. 

And that I, the son of the godhed, of her schal be bor', 
Hyge the, thou wer' ther' a pace, 

ellys we schal be ther, the be for', 
I haue so gret hast, to be man thor', 

In that mekest & purest virgyne, 
Sey her, she shal restor, 

Of yow Aungellys, the grett knyne. 



42 
God the Holy Ghost, adds, 

5f And, if she aske the howe it myth be, 

lette her, I, the holy gost, schal werke at this ; 
Sche schal be savyd thorwe our unyte. 

In tokyn, her bareyn cosyn Elyzabeth, is 
Qwyk with childe, in her' grett age, I wys ; 

Sey her', to vs, is no thynge impossyble, 
Her' body schal be so ful fylt, with blys. 

That she schal sone thynke this sownde credyble. 

Gabriel departs. He then appears to the Virgin, 
with this salutation : 

Heyl !— fful of grace, God is with the ! 

Amonge all women blyssyd art th'u ! 
Her' this name Eva, is turnyd Aue, 

That is to say, with owte sorwe ar ye now ! 
^ Thow sorwe, in yow, hath no place, 

Yet of joy lady ye nede more; 
Therfore I adde, and sey, ful of grece, 

fFor so ful of grace was nevyr non bore ; 
Yet who hath grace he nedyth kepyng sor', 

Therfor' I sey God is with the, 
Which schal kepe yow endlesly thor' ; 

So amonge all women blyssyd are ye ] (") 

Mary says she is troubled at the greeting with 
' grett shamfastnes.'(^) 

^Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 

(») Mary, vii.— 3. Hail, Mary ! Vir- 
gin of the Lord most acceptable ! Oh 
Virgin full of grace ! The Lord is with 
you, you are blessed above all women, 
you are blessed above all men, that 
have been hitherto born. 

C*) 4. But the Virgin, who had be- 
fore been well acquahited with the 
countenances of angels, and to whom 
such light from heaven was no uncom- 



mon thing, 

5. Was neither terrified with the vi- 
sion of the angel, nor astonished at the 
greatness of the light, but only troubled 
about the angel's words ; 

6. And began to consider what so 
extraordinary a salutation should 
mean, what it did portend, or what 
sort of end it would have. 



43 

Gabryel. — Mary, in this, take ye no drede, 
For at God, grace fownde hane ye ; 
Ye schal conceyve, in yo' wombe, in dede, 

A childe, the sone of the trynyte ; 
His name, of yow, Jh'u clepyd schal be ;(") 

He schal be grett, the son of the hyest, clepyd of kende, 
&, of his ffadyr, davyd, the lord schal geve hy' the se, 

Reynyng i'the hous of Jacob, of which regne schal be 
n' ende.C) 

Maria. Aungel; 1 sey to yow, 

In what maner of vvyse schal this be ? 
fFor known*ng of man 1 haue non now ; 

I haue evyr mor kept, ^ schal, my virginyte ; 
I dowte not the wordys ye han seyd to me. 
But, I aske ho we it schal be do' ?(<^) 
Gabryel. — The holy gost schal com, fro above, to the; 
& the vertu of hy', hyest, schal schadu yu. (f) 

He directs her to visit Elizabeth, her aged cousin, 
who is in the ' sexte monyth of her passage.* 

[ffer the Aungel makyth a lytyl restynge, S^ Mary be- 
holdyth hy\ <%" the Aungel seythy'] 

[Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 

(») Mary, vii.— 7. To this thought 
the angel, divinely inspired, replies ; 

8. Fear not, Mary, as though I in- 
tended any thing inconsistent with your 
chastity in this salutation ; 

9. For you have found favour with 
the Lord, because you made virginity 
your choice. 

10. Therefore while you are a Vir- 
gin, you shall conceive without sin, and 
bring forth a son. 

C*) 11. He shall be great, because 
he shall reign from sea to sea, and from 
the rivers even to the ends of the earth. 

12. And he shall be called the Sou 
of the Highest ; for he who is born in a 
mean state on earth, reigns in an ex- 



alted one in heaven. 

13. And the Lord shall give him the 
throne of his father David, and he 
shall reign over the house of Jacob for 
ever, and of his kingdom there shall be 
no end. 

(•=) 15- To this discourse of the an- 
gel the Virgin replied, not, as though 
she were unbelieving, but willing to 
know the manner of it : 

16. She said, How can that be ? For 
seeing, according to my vow, I never 
have known any man, how can I bear 
a child ? 

('') 19. The Holy Ghost shall come 
upon yon, and the power of the Most 
High shall overshadow you. 



44 

The Holy Ghost 

Abydyth thin answer, and thin assent. 
Thor'we vvyse werke of dyvinyte, 

the secunde p'sone, verament, 
Is mad man, by fraternyte 

With inne thi self, in place present. 

He acquaints her that * all the blyssyd spyrytys^ 
all the gode levers, the chosyn sowlys that ar in helle 
& byde Jesu,* 

Thin answer desyr to her ; 
And thin assent to the incarnac'on : — 

GyfF me my' answer', now, lady der' ? 
Maria. — With all mekenes I 'clyne, to this a corde ; 

Bowynge down my face, with all benyngnyte. 
Se her, the hand mayden of our lorde, 

Aftyr thi worde be it don to me.(^) 
GahryeL — Gramercy ! my lady ffre ; 

Graihercy ! of yo' aunswer on hyght ; 
Gramercy ! of yo'r grett humylyte ; 

Gramercy ! the', lanterne of lyght ! 
[Her^ the holy gost discendit, with iij, hemys, to o* lady; 

the sone of the godhed, nest, with iij. hemys, to the holy 

gost ; theffadyr, godly, with iij hemys, to the sone / And 

so entre, al thre, to her bosom ; 8^ Mary seyth,'] 

A ! now I fele, in my body be, 

Parfyte god, & parfyte man ; 
Havyng al schapp of chyldly carnalyte : — 

Evyn, all at onys, thus God be gan ! 

{Passage paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.) 

(a) Mary, vii. — 21. Then Mary i handmaid of the Lord! Let it be unt& 
stretching forth her hands, and lifting I me according to thy word, 
her eyes o heaven, said, Behold the I 



45 

^ Nott takynge fFyrst o membyr, & sythe a notlier, 

But parfyte childhod ye have a non ; 
Of your hand mayden, now, ye have made your modyr, 

With owte peyne in fflesche & bon ! 
Thus conceyved nevyr woman non, 

That evyr was beynge in this lyff; 

my' hyest fFadyr, in your tron, 

It is worthy your son, now my son, have a pr'ogatyff ! 
^ I cannot telle what joy, what blysse, 

Now I fele in my body. 
Aungel Gabryel, 1 thank yow for thys ;. 

Most mekely recomende me to my faders mercy. 
To haue be' the modyr of God, fful lytyl wend I, 

Now, my' cosyn Elyzabeth ffayn wold I se. 
How sche hath conseyvid, as ye dede specyfy. 

Now, blyssyd be the hyg trynyte ! 
Gabryel. — Far' weyl turtyl; Goddys dowter der': 

Far' wel Goddys modyr ; I the honowr : 
Far' wel Goddys sustyr, & his pleynge fer' ; 

Far' wel Goddys chawmer, & his bowr 1 

Mary returns Gabriel's farewell, and says,, 

I undyrstande, by inspyrac'on', 
That ye knowe, by synguler p'uylage, 
Most of my son'ys Incarnac'on : 

1 p'y you take it in to vsage, 

Be a custom' ocupac'on. 
To vesyte me, ofte, be mene passage ; 
Your p'sence is my comfortac'on. 

Gabriel courteously accepts the invitation, com- 
mends himself to ' the trone of the trinyte,' and 
ascends to ' hefne,' with an Ave : — 

Ave MariA! gt'a plena'} ' ,, , . 

,, , , , > AmU cantandoista sequentia, 

a us iecu uy go sesena } ^ 



46 



MYSTERY V 



IN COTTON MS. PAGEANT Xll. 



josp:ph's jealousy. 



(^) Joseph. — How dame, how! viido your dor'! vndo ! 

Ar ye at hom ? why speke ye notht ? 
Susanna. — Who is ther? why cry ye so ? 

Telle us your herand : wyl ye ought? 
Joseph.-^Vn do your dor ! I sey you to, 

ffor to com in is all my thought. 
Maria, — It is my spowse, that spekyth us to, 

On do the dor, his wyl wer' wrought. 
% Well come hom, m'y husbond der ! 
How have you ferd, in fer co'ntre ? 
Joseph, — To gete our levynge, with owtyn dwer', 
I have sor' laboryd, fFor the & me. (•') 
Maria. — Husbond, ryght gracyously, now come be ye; 
It solacyth me sor', sothly, to se yow in syth. 



[Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(») Mary, viii.— l. Joseph therefore 
went from Jndaea to Galilee, with in- 
tention to marry the Virgin who was 
betrotiied to him ; 

2. For it was now near three months 



since she was betrothed to him. 

C") Protevangelion, X. — 1. Jo- 
seph returned from his building houses 



47 

Joseph.- — Me merveylyth, w}fF! surely your face 1 can not se, 

But as the sonne with his bemys in 'he is most bryth. 
Maria, — ^ Husbond, it is, as it plesyth our lord, that grace of 
hy' grew. 
Who that evyr beholdyth me, veryly, 
They schal be grettly steryd to veriu ; 

ffor this gyfte, and many moo, good lord gramercy ! 
Joseph, — How bast ihou ferde, jentyl mayde, 

Whyl I have be' out of londe ? 
Maria. — Sekyr, ser ; beth nowth dysmayde, 

Byth aftyr the wyl of goddys sonde, 
Joseph. — That semyth evyl, I am afrayd ; 

Thi wombe to hyge doih stonde; (f) 
I drede me sor' 1 am be trayd, 
S'n other man the had in honde, 
Hens, sythe, that I went : Q) 
Thy wombe is gret, it gynnyth to ryse, 
Than has thou be gownne a synfuli gyse, 

Thy self thou art thus schent. 
^ Now, dame, what thinge menyth this ? 

With childe thou gynnyst ryth gret to gon ; 
Sey me, Mary, this childys fadyr ho is ? 
I p'y the telle me, and that anon ? 
Maria. — The fadyr of hevyn, & se, it is. 
Other fadyr hath he non : 
I dede nevyr forfete with man, 1 wys, 

Wherefor', I p'y yow, amende yo' mon, 
This childe is goddys, and your'. 



[^Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 

(*) Mary, viii.— 3. At length it, familiarly witli her, he perceived her 
plainly appeared she was with child, } to be with child, 
and it could not be hid from Joseph : ('') 3. And thereupon began to be 

4. For going to the Virgin in a free ! uneasy and doubtful, not knowing what 
manner, as one espoused, and talking course it would be best to take, 



48 



Joseph. — Goddys childe ! thou lyist, in fay' ! 
God dede nevyr rape so with may'. 

^ tF w "«* 

But yit I say, Mary, whoos childe is this ? 
.Maria.— Goddys and your', I sey, I wys. 
Joseph.— 'Yii, ya ! all olde men, to me take tent, 

& weddyth no wyfF, in no kynnys wyse, 
Thai is a yonge wench, be m'y a sent. 
For dout€ &- drede & suych servyse. 
Alas ! Alas ! my name is shent ; 
All men may me now dyspyse, 
& seyn olde cokwold ! • 

:Jf: # # # 

Alas, and welaway ! 
Alas, dame ! why dedyst thou so ? 
For this synne, that thou hast do, 
I the for sake, and from the go, 
For onys evyr, & dy. 
Maria.- — Alas gode spowse ! why sey ye thus ? 

Alas der' hosbund a mende yo' mod ! 
It is no man, but swete J bus. 

He wyll be clad in flesch and blood. 
And of yo' vvyff be born. 
Saphor. — For sothe the A'ngel thus seyd he, 
That goddys sone, in trynite. 
For mannys sake, a man wolde be. 
To save that is for lorn. 
Joseph. — An A'ngel ! alias, alas ! fy for schame ! 
Ye syu now, in that ye to say ; 
To putiyn an A'ngel in so gret blame. 

Alas, alas ! let be do way ; 
It was s'n boy began this game. 

That clolhyd was dene and gay, 
,& ye geve hym now an A'ngel name. 
Alas, alas ! and welaway. 

That evyr this game be tydde ! 



49 



A dame ! what thought haddyst thou ? 
Her may all men this pi \t . be trow, 
That many a man doth bete the bow, 
Another man hath the brydde. 
Maria. — A gracyous God ! in hefne trone ! 

Comforte my spowse in t! is hard cas; 
Mercyful god, a mend his mone, 
As I dede nevyr so gret trespas. 
Joseph. — Lo, Lo, sers! what toid I yow, 
That it was not for my prow, 

A wyfif to take me to, 
An that is wel sene now ; 
For Mary, 1 make god a vow. 

Is grett with childe, lo ! 
Alas, why is it so ? 

To the busshop I wole it telle, 
That he the lawe may here do, 

With stonys her to qwelle. 
^ Nay, nay, yet God forbede ! 
• That I shuld do that ve'geabyl dede. 

But if 1 wyst, wel away ! 
I knew nev' witk her, so God me spede, 
To ky' of thynge, i' word nor dede, 

That towchyd velany. 
Nevyr the less what for thy, 

Thow she be meke & mylde. 
With owth mannys company. 

She myght not be with childe. 
^ But I ensur' my' was it nevyr ; 
Thow yet she hath not done her devyr. 

Rather than I shuld pleyny' opynly, 
Certeynly, )ett, had I levyr 
For sake the co'ntr', flfor evyr, 

& nevyr come i' her' co'pan^. 
For, 8c men knew this velany. 



50 

In reprofF thei wolde me holde, 
And yett many bettyr than I, 

Ya ! hath ben made cokolde. 
^ Now, alas ! whedyr schal I gone ? 

I wot nevyr whedyr, nor to what place ; 
For oftyn tyme sor'we comyth sone, 

& longe it is or it pace. 
No comfort may I have her*. 

I wys wyfF thou dedyst me wronge, 
Alas I taryed fro' the to longe. 
All men have pety enime amonge, 
For to my sor'we is no cher.(*) 
Maria, — God ! that in my body art sesyd, 

Thou knowist my husbond is dysplesyd, 

To se me i' this plight ; 
For unknowlage he is desesyd, 
& therfor help that he wer' esyd. 

That he myght knowe the ful pT yght ; 
For I hane levyr abyde respyt. 

To kepe thi sone in p'uite, 
Graunted by the holy spyryt. 

Than that it shulde be opyn'd by me. 

God appears and instructs an Angel to desire Jo- 
seph will abide with Mary, she being pregnant by 
God himself. 

Angelus.i^) — Joseph ! Joseph ! thou wepyst shyrle, 
Fro' thi wyflf why comyst thou owte ? 



[Passages 'paralleled; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(y) Mary, viiu— 6. For beiag ajust 
man, he was not willing to expose her, 
nor defame her by the suspicion of be- 
ing a whore, since he was a pious man. 

7. Hepnrposed therefore privately 



to put an end to their agreement, and 
as privately to send her away. 

(^) 8. But while he was meditating 
these things, behold the angel of the 
Lord appeared to him. 



51 

Joseph,— 'Good ser ! lete me wepe my ffylle ; 

Go forthe that wey, & lett me nowght. 

The Angel requests him to return and cheer her — 

Sche is a ful clene may', 

I tolle ye God wyl of her be born, 
And sche clene mayd as she was be forn. 
To save mankynd that is for lorn ; 
Go cher' her, ther'for', I say. 
Joseph, — A, lord god! benedicite ! 

Of thi gret comforte I thank the, 

That thou sent me this space; 
I myght wel a wyst parde. 
So good a creatur' as sche. 

Wold nevyr a don' trespace 
****** 

Joseph then returns to Mary, and under a feeling 
of repentance and delight, says, 

Joseph. — Alas! for joy, I qwedyr & qwake ! 
Alas ! what hap now was this ? 
A mercy ! mercy ! my jentyl make, 

mercy ! I have seyd al a mys ; 
All that I have seyd her' I for sake, 
Your swete fete now let me kys. 
Maria. — Nay lett be ; my fete not thou' them take ; 
My mowth ye may kys, I wys, 
& welcome on to me. 
Joseph. — Gra'mercy ! my' owyn swete wyff ! 

Gramercy ! myn hert ! my love ! my lyfF ! 
Schal I nevyr mor' mak suche stryiF, 
Be twyx me & the ! 

He tells her he is convinced :- — 

Had thou not be' a vertuous wythe, 
God wold not a be' the' with inne. 



m 

Joseph assures Mary that hereafter he will serve 
her, and worship the child; yet he expresses cu- 
riosity — 

& therefor' telle me, & nothynge w'hou'de, 
The holy mat'er of your concep'ion. 

Mary relates, that the Angel Gabriel greeted her, 
and said, 

God shulde be borne of my bode, 

The ffendys powste fFor to ffelle, 
Thor'we the Holy Gost, as I wel se : 

Thus God, in me, wyl byde & dwelle. 

Joseph expresses satisfaction, thanks God, is re- 
conciled to Mary, and the performance concludes. 



63 



MYSTERY VI. 



IN COTTON MS. PAGEANT XUt. 



VISIT OF MARY TO ELIZABETH. 



Mary discoursing with JOSEPH, informs him that 
Elizabeth is with Child, and proposes to visit her. 

Joseph, — A ! godys sake ! is she with childe ? sche ? 
Than wole her husbond zakarye be mery ; 
In Montana they dwelle, fer hens, so nioty the 

In the cety of Juda, I know it veryly, 
It is hens, I trowe, myles two & ffyfty. 

They prepare for the journey, and on setting off, 
Mary urges Joseph to go fast, * (For I am schamfast 
of the pepyl to be seyne.* 

Joseph, — Amen, Amen, & evyr more, 

[<5r sic fnsient eta placea.'] 
Lo wyfF! lo ! how starkly I go befor. 

Contemplation. 

Sovereynes ! Vndyrstand, that kyng davyd here 
Ordeyned ffour & twenty prestys, of grett devoc'on, 

In the temple of God. * # # * 

And on' was prynce of prestys, havynge d'nacy*on, 
G 



' ■ 54 

Amonge which was an old prest, clepyd Zakarye, 

& he had an old woman to his wyfF, of holy conversac'on, 
Whiche hyih Ehzabeth, that nevyr had childe, verylye. 

Contemplation then states, that there has been 
an annunciation by Gabriel to Zachary that his wife 
should conceive, her consequent conception, and 
Mary's intended visit to her : 

And of her' t\\ eyners melyng, 

her gynnyth the proces ; — • 
Now god be our begyunynge, 

&, of ray tonge, 1 wole ses. 
Joseph. — A ! A ! wyfF, in feyth I am wery ; 

therfore I wole sytt downe & rest me ryght her' 
Lo, wyfiF! her is the hous of Zakary, 

Wole ye Fclepe Elyzabeth to yow to aper ? 
Maria. — Nay, husbond, and it plese you, I shal go ner. 

Now the blyssyd trynite be in this hous ! 
A ! cosyn Elizabeth ! swete modyr ! what cher ? 

Ye grow grett ; A, my God ! how ye be gracyous \{^) 
Elizabeth. — A non, as I herd of yow this holy gretynge, 
Mekest mayden, & the modyr of god, Mary, 

Be yo' breth, the holy gost vs was inspyrynge, 
That the childe in my body enjoyd gretly. 
And turnyd down, on his knes, to our god, reverently, 

Whom ye ber' in your body.('') 

They congratulate and bless each othere Eliza- 



IPassages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 

(*) pROTEVAN. ix. — 19. Then Mary, that the mother of my Lord slwuld 

filled with joy, went away to her cousin come unto me ? 

Elizabeth, and knocked at the door. 21. For lo ! as soon as the voice of 

(*') 20. Which when Elizabeth heard, thy salutation reached my ears, that 

she ran aud opened to her, and blessed which is in me leaped and blessed 

her, and said, Whence is this to me. thee. 



.55 

beth asks Mary what occasioned her visit; to this 
she answers, 

Mary, — Whan I sat, in my lytyl hous, on to God praynge, 

Gabryel come, & seyde to me, Ave ; 
Ther I conceyvyd God, at my consentynge, 
Parfyte god & p'fyte man, at onys beynge; 

Than the Aungel seyd on to me, 
That it was sex monethys syn your conseyvynge. 

This cawsyth my comynge cosyn, yow to co'fort 8c se. 

Elizabeth acquaints Mary of her own conception 
after Gabriel's salutation, and they sing Magnificat^ 
taking two lines alternately. It is given in the Latin, 
and translated into English verse. Mary says this 
Psalm ought 

to be seyn 

Euery day amonge us, at our eve song. 
But, cosyn Elyzabeth, I schal you her* kepe, 

& this thre monethis abyde her' now, 
Tyl ye ban childe, to wasche, sko'r, & swepe, 

&, in all that I may, to comforte yow. 

Elizabeth, — A ye ! modyr of God ! ye shewe us her* how 
We schulde be made, that wrecchis her be, 
All hefne and herthe wurchepp yow mow. 
That ar' trone & tabernakyl of the hyg trinite. 

Zachary remains speechless during this conversa- 
tion. Joseph salutes him. 

Joseph, — A! how do ye? how do ye, ffadyr Zacharye? 
We fifalle fFast in age with owt oih: 
Why shake ye so yo* bed ? bane ye the palsye ? 
Why speke ye not ser* ? I trowe ye ar' not wroth. 



56 

Elizabeth, — Nay wys, ffadyr Joseph, th'to he wer* ful loth ; 

It is the vesytac'on of God; he may not speke, veryly ; 
lete us thank god therfor both, 

He schal remedy it whan it plesyth his mercy. 

, Joseph tells Mary they have far to go, and had 
better return home. After mutual leave taking with 
Zachary and Elizabeth, they depart. 

[Her Mary ^ Elizabet party*, &j Elizabeth goth to 
Zakarie S^ seyth,"] 
Good husbond ryse up, 1 be seke yow, & go we the te'ple iiovy 
fast, to worship, because god wyl be born. 

Coteplaon. — Lystenyth Sovereynys, her is a conclusyon 

How the Ave was mad, her' is lernyd vs; 

The Aungel seyd, Ave gia plena d'us tecum, 

benedicta tit in mulierihus. 
Elyzabeth seyd, et benedictus 
fruitis ventris tui. Thus the church added Maria, and 
Jh'us her. 
Who seyth our ladyes sawter dayly, ffor a yer thus. 
He hath pardon ten thowsand & eyte hundryd yer. 

CONTEMPLACION continues — relates that Mary 
abode with Elizabeth during three months, till John 
was born, and that then Zachary & Elizabeth ' pro- 
phecyed,' 

They made Benedictus them beforn, 
& so Magnificat and Benedictus 

fFyrst, in that place thei made worn, 
whan all was don, our lady fre 

Toke her* leve, than after this 
At Elizabeth, & at Zakarie, 

And kyssyd John, & gau hy' blys. 



57 

Now, most mekely we thank you of yowr pacyens, 

& beseke yow, of your good supporlac'on, 
If her' hath he seyd, or do* any i*co'ueuyens. 

We assygne it, to yowr good dehberac'on ; 
Be sek yn'ge, to crysts pVous passyon, 

Co'serue & rewarde yowr hedyr comy'ge, 
With Ave we be gun*e, & Ave is our co'clusyon 

Ave Regia celor to our lady we synge. 

The Play concludes and ushers in the succeeding 
Pageant by the following sprightly address, which as 
a specimen of the language held by the Performers to 
their audiences is curious. In the last verse but one, 
there is a pretty clear intimation that the goodness of 
the playing was according to the liberality of the 
pay. . 

^ A voyd sers ! And lete my lorde the buschop come. 
And syt in the courte, the lawes for to doo ; 
And I schal gon in this place, them for to somowne, 
The that ben in my book, the court ye must com to©. 

^ I warne yow her', all a bowte, 
That I somown you, all the rowte, 
Loke ye fayl, for no dowte. 

At the court to * per*. 

V 

Both John Jurdon', & Geffrey Gyle, 
Malkyn Mylkedoke, & fayr Mabyle, 
Stevyn Sturdy, & Jak at the style, 
& Sawdyr Sadeler. 



58 

f Thorn Tynker', & Betrys belle, 
Peyrs Potter, & Whatt at the welle, 
Symme Smalfeyth, & Kate Kelle, 

& Bertylmevv the bocher'. 

Kytt cakeler, & Colett crane, 
Gylle fetyse, & fayr Jane, 
Powle pewter', & P'nel prane, 

& Phelypp the good fleccher. 

^ Cok crane, & Davy dry dust. 
Luce Lyer, & Letyce lytyl trust, 
Miles the miller, & colle crake crust, 

Bolhe bette the baker, & Robyn Rede. 

And loke ye rynge wele in yowr purs, 
For ellys yowr cawse may spede the wurs, 
Thow that ye slynge goddys curs, 
Evy' at my' hede. 

^ Bothe Bontyng the browster', & Sybyly Slynge, 
Megge Mery wedyr, & Sabyn Sprynge, 
Tyfifany Twynkeler, fFayle for no thynge, 
ffast co' A way. 
The courte schal be this day. 



59 



MYSTERY VII 



IN COTTON MS. PAGEANT XIV. 



THE TRIAL OF MARY AND JOSEPH. 



Two Slanderers introduce the simple story of this 
performance. 

Prim. Detractor. — A! A! serys, God save yow all; 
Her' is a fayr pepyl, in good fay. 

***** ^ 

To reyse blawdyr is al my lay, 

Bakbyter is my brother of blood. 
^ Dede he ought come hedyr in al this day ; 

Now wolde God that he wer her', 
&, be my trewth, I dar' wel say, 

That, if we tweyn, to gedyr a per', 
Mor slawndyr we to schal a rer', 

With in an howr', thorwe outh this town, 
Than evyr ther was this thowsand yer, 

& ellys I shrewe you, bothe vp & down. 
^ Now, be my trewth, I have a syght, 

Euyn of my brother, lo wher he is :~ 
Welconi, der brother 1 my trowth 1 plyght. 
Your jentyl mowth let me now kys. 

S'c^dus Detector. — Gramercy I brother, so have 1 blys ; 
I am ful glad we met this day, 



60 

1st Detractor, '•^Ryght so am I, brother, I wys, 
moch gladder than I kan say. 
^ But yitt, good brother, I yow pray. 

Telle, all these pepyl, what is yo' name : 
For yf thei knew it, my lyf I lay, 

They wole yow wurchep, & spek gret fame. 
2d Detractor, — I am bakbyter, that spyllyth all game, 

bothe hyd and knowyn, in many a place. 
\st Detractor. — Be my trowth, I seyd the same ; 

& yet sum seyden thou shulde have evyl grace. 
2d Detractor, — ^ Herki reyse sclaundyr : canst thou owth telle 

of any newe thynge that wrought was late ? 
Ist Detractor, — With in a shorte whyle a thynge befelle, 
I trow^e thou wylt lawhg ryghtt wel ther ate, 
fFor, be trowth, ryght mekyl hate. 
If it be wyst, therof wyl growe. 
Q,d Detractor, — If I may reyse ther with debate, 

I schal not spar* the seyd to sowe. 
1st Detractor, — Syr, in the tempyl, a mayd ther was, 
Calde mayd Mary ; the trewth to tell, 
Sche seruyd so holy, with inne that plas, 

men, seyd sche was fedde with holy A*ngell ; 
Sche made a vow with man nevyr to melle. 

But to leve chast, & clene virgine, 
How evyr it be, her wombe doth swelle, 
& is as gret as thyne or myne. 

They discourse for some time upon this news very 
wittily, but in terms not befitting modern refine- 
ment. 

The Bishop, 'AbiZACHAR,' enters, with two Doctors 
of Law. They listen to part of the slander, and at 
last the Bishop says, ' Herke ye felawys,* and in- 
quires why they defame the virgm*s character — 

I charge yow ses of your fals cry, 
ffor sche is sybbe of my owyn blood. 



61 

Q.d Detractor » — ^ Syb of thi kyn thow that she be 
All gret with chylde her wombe doth swelle ; 
Do calle her hedyr, thi self schal se, 
That it is trewthe that I thee telle. 
1st Detractor. — Ser, for yowr sake, I schal kepe cowncelle, 
Yow for to greve I am ryght loth. 
But list, syrs, lyst, what seyth the belle ? 
Our fayr mayd now gret with childe goth. 
Princ, Doct. leg, — 5f Make good heed, sers, what ye doth say, 
A vyse yow wele what ye p'sent, 
Gyf this be fownde fals, anothyr day 
flful sor' ye schal yowr tale repent. 
Q,d Detractor. — Ser, the mayd, forsothe, is good, & gent, 
Both comely, & gay, & a fayr wench ; 
And, feetly, with help, sche can consent, 
To set a cokewolde on the hye benche. 
JEpVs.— This evy talys my hert doth greve. 
Of hir' to her' suc'h fowle dalyawnce. 
If she be fowndyu in such repreve. 
She schal sore rewe her governawns. 
^ Si/m Somnor\ in hast wend thou thi way, 
Byd Joseph, and his wyfF, be name, 
At the coorte to apper this day, 

Her* hem to pourge of her defame ; 
Sey that I her* of hem grett schame, 

& that doth me gret hevynes. 
If thei be clene, with owtyn blame, 

byd hem come hedyr, & shewe wytt nes. 
Den. — % All redy ser I schal hem calle, 
Her* at yo' courte for to apper. 
And, yf I may hem mete with all, 

I hope ryght sone thei schal ben her. 
A wey, sers ! lete me com ner* ; 

A man of wurchep her* comyth to place. 
Of curtesy, me semyth, ye be to ler*, . 

Do of yo* hodys^ with an evyl grace ! 
H 



62 

51 Bo me su' wurchep be for my face, 
or, be my trowtb, I schal yow make 
If that I rolle yow up in my race, 

ffor fer I schal do yowr limbs qwake, 
But yit su' mede, & ye me take, 

I wyl with drawe my gret rough toth. 
Gold, or sylvyr, I wyl not for sake, 
But evyn as all somnors doth. 
^ A, Joseph ! good day, with thi ifayr spowse ; 
my lorde, the buschop, hath for yow sent, 
It is hym tolde that in thi' house 

A cockolde is 

Maria. — ^ Of God, in hevyn, I take wyttnes, 
That synful werk was nevyr my thought, 
I am a mayd yit, of pur' clennes, 

Lyke as I was in to this werd brought. 
Den. — Othyr wyttnes shal non be sought ; 

Thou art with childe, eche man may se ; 
I charge yow bothe ye tary nought. 

But, to the buschop, com forth, with me, 
.Joseph. — To the buschop, with yow, we wende ; 

Of our purgac'on hawe we no dowth. 
Maria. — Almyghty God shal be our frende. 

Whan the trewthe is tryed owth. 
Den. — Ha ! on this wyse, excusyth her', every scowte, 
Whan her owyn synne hem doth defame ; 
But lowly therin thei gyn to lowth. 

Whan thei be gylty, & fowndyn in blame. 
Therfore com forth cokewolde 

The Som'nor upbraids them further, and brings 
them before the Bishop, whom he thus addresses: 

My lord, the buschop ; her' haue I brought 

This goodly copyl, at yo' byddyng ; 
&, as me semyth, as be her', fraught 

fFayr chylde, lullay, sone must she syng. 



63 



1st Detractor. — To her a credyl & ye wolde brynge, 
Ye myght saue mony in her purse, 
be cawse she is your cosyn, (young) thynge, 
I pray yow, ser, lete her nevyr far the vvers. 

Ep'us.~% Alas, Mary ! what hast thou wrought P^*) 
1 am a schamyd evyn for thi sake 

* * * * 

Tell me who hath wrought this wranke, 
How hast thou lost thi holy name ? 

Maria.— ^ My name, I hope, is safF and sownde^ 
God to wyttnes I am a mayd. 

* * * * 

Of ffleschly lust & gostly wownde / 

In dede nor thought I nevyr asayd. {^) 

Qd Doct, leg. — Herke thou, Joseph ; I am afrayd 
That thou hast wrought this opyn synne ;(') 
This woman thou hast thus be trayd. 
With gret flaterynge, or su* fals gynne. 
****** 
^d Detractor.— IS ow, be my trowth, ye hytte the pynne, 
With that purpose in feyth I holde, 
Tell now how thou thus hir dudyst wyune, 
Or knowlych thi self ffor a cockewold ? 
Joseph. — Sche is, for me, a trewe cleue mayde, 
And I, for hir, am clene also ; 
Of ffleschly synne I nevy' asayde, 

Sythyn that sch' was w eddyd me to. {^) 



[Passages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(^) Protevan. xi.— 8. Both she and 
Joseph were brought to their trial; 
and the priest said unto her, Mary, 
what hast thou done? 

Q") 11. To which with a flood of 
tears she answered, As the Lord my 
God liveth, I am innocent in his sight, 



seeing I know no man. 

(<=) 12. Then the priest said to Jo- 
seph, Why hast thou done this ? 

C) 13. And Joseph answered, as the 
Lord my God liveUi, I have not been 
concerned with her. 



64 

Ep'ns, — Thou schalt not schape from vs, yitt so, 
fFyrst thou shake tellyn us a nother lay, 
Streyt to the awter thou shalt go, 

The drynge of vengeawns ther to a say. 
^ Her is the hotel of Goddys vengeauns ; ('') 
This drynk shall be now thi purgac'on ; 
This hath suche vertu, by Goddys ordenauns, 

That what man drynk of this potac'on, 
And goth (straightway) in p'cessyon, 

Her' in this place this awter abowth, 
If he be gylty, sum maculacion, 

Pleyn in his face, schal shewe it owth. 

[hie Joseph bihit ^ sap'cies ecuiuit altar' dices.'\ 
Joseph. — This drynk I take, with meke entent, 
As I am gyltles, to God I pray ; 
Lord ! as thou art omnypotente. 

On me then shewe the trowth this day. 

[modo bihit^ 
About this awter I take the way ; 

O gracyous God help thi servaunt, 
As, I am gyltles, a gen you may ; 

Thi hand of mercy, this tyme, me graunt. 
Den. — This olde shrewe may not wele gon, 
Longe he taryeth to go a bowth; 
lyft up thi feet, set forth thi ton, 

or, be my trewth, thou getyst a clowte. 

Joseph is sorely upbraided and taunted, by the 
Som'nor and the Slanderers, whilst he paces round 
the altar. 



[Passage paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(*)Protevan. xi. — IT. But he wept 
bitterly, and the priest added, I will 
cawse you both to drink the water of 



the Lord, which is for trial, and so 
your iniquity shall be laid open before 
you. 



65 

Joseph — A, gracyous God ! help me this tyde, 

Ageyn this pepyl, that doth me defame, 
As I nevyr more dede towche her syde, 

This day help me^ fro werdly scheme, 
Abowte this awter to kepe my fame. 
^ vij. tymes I haue gon rownd abowte. 

If I be wurthy to sufFyr blame, 
O, ryghtful god ! my synne shewe owughte. 
Ep'us. — Joseph ; with herte, thank god, thi lorde, 

Whos hey' mercy doth the excuse ; 
ffor thi purgac'on we schal recorde. 

With hyr, of synne, thou dedyst nev' muse ; 
But, Mary, thi self mayst not refuse, 

All grett with chylde we se the stonde ; 
What mystyz man dede the mys vse ? 

Why hast thou synnyd A geyn thi husbonde ? 
Maria. — I trespacyd nevyr, with erthely wyght, 

Therof 1 hope, th*owe goddys sonde, 
Her to be purgyd, be for yo' syght, 

From all synne clene, lyke as my' husbonde ; 
Take me the hotel, out of yowr honde ; 

Her schal I drynke, beforn yowr face, 
A bowth this awter than schal I fonde 

vij tymes to go, by godys grace. 

***** ■ 

2d Doct. leg. — ^ With goddys hyg myght loke thou not rape, 

Of thi purgac'on wel the a vyse ; 
Yf thou be gylty thou mayst not schape, 

be war evyr of god that ryghtful justyce. 
If God with vengeauns set on the his syse, 

Not only thou, but all thi kyn is schamyd, 
Bettyr it is to telle the trewth devyse. 

Than God for to greve, & of hym be gramyd. 

Mary drinks of the water of vengeance, and walks 



66 

around the aitar^, saying a prayer to God, which she 
concludes thus: 

Gabryel me, with wordys, he be forn, 

That ye, of your goodnes, would become my chylde ; 
Help now of your hyg-ness, my wurchep be not lorn, 

A der' sone ! I p y yow, help yo' modyr mylde. 

Mary receives no harm from the potation, and the 
High Priest, in astonishment, declares, that 
Sche is clene mayde, both modyr and wyfF! 

The Slanderers suspecting some deceit, express 
dissatisfaction. 

1st Detractor. — Be my fadyr sowle, her* is gret gyle ; 
be cause she is syb of yowr kynreed. 
The drynk is chaungyd, by su' fals wyle. 
That sche no shame shulde haue this steed. 

The High Priest orders the Slanderer to drink of 
the same cup. 

1st Detractor, — Syr, in good feyth, o draught I pulle, 
If these to drinkers have not all spent. 

He instantly becomes frantic from the draught; 
the Bishop and all present ask pardon of Mary for 
their suspicion and detraction, which she grants 5 
she and Joseph congratulate each other; and the 
piece concludes. 



"67 



MYSTERY VIII. 

IN COTTON MS. PAGEANT XV. 



THE MIRACULOUS BIRTH, AND THE 
MIDWIVES. 



The Play commences by Joseph acquainting Mary, 
that Octavian having demanded tribute to be * cryed 
in every bourgh & cety be name/ he must ^ sekyr- 
nedys* in ^ Bedleem' by labor. (*) Mary says she will 
go with him, where she may perhaps find some of her 
kin. 

Joseph.*— My spowse ye be with childe ; 1 fer yow to kary ; 

For, me semyth, it wer' werkys wylde : 
But yow to plese, ryght fayn wold I ; 

Yitt women ben ethe to greve, whan thei be with childe. 
Now latt us forth wend, as fast as we may, 

& al myghty God spede us, in our jurnay. 

Mary, while they are travelling, espies a tree, and 
inquires of Joseph, 

A my swete husbond ! wolde ye telle to me, 
What tre is yon, standing vpon yon hylle ? 
Joseph. — For suthe Mary it is clepyd a chery tre ; 

In tyme of yer, ye myght ffede yow theron yowr fylle. 

[Passage paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test,] 

(*) Protevan. xii. — 1. And it came the Jews should be taxed, wha were of 
to pass, tliat tliere went forth a decree ^ Bethlehem, in Judasa. 
from the Emperor Augustus, that all , 



68 

Maria. — Turn a geyn, husbond^ & be holde yon tre, 

How that it blomyght, now, so swetly. 
Joseph. — Cum on Mary, that we wern at yon Cyte, 

or ellys we may be blamyd, I telle yow lythly. 
Maria, — ^ Now my spowse, I pray yow to be hold 

How the cheryes growyn vpon yon tre ; 
flfor to have them, of ryght, flfayn 1 wold, 

& it plesyd yow to labor' so mec'h for me. 
Joseph, — ^ Yo* desyr to flfulfylle I schall assay sekyrly : — 

Ow ! to plucke yow of these cheries, it is a werk wylde! 
fFor the tre is so hy', it wol not be lyghtly 

Y* for lete hy' pluk yow cheryes, be gatt yow with childe. 
Maria, — ^ Now, good lord, I pray the, graunt me this bonn, 

to haue of these cheries, & it be yo' wylle ; 
now, I thank it god, yis tre bowyth to me down, 

I may now gader'y a nowe, & etyn my fFylle. 

Joseph perceives, by the bowing down of the tree, 
that in speaking thus reproachfully to the Virgin, he 
has offended ' god i' trinyte,' and he humbles himself. 
Meeting ^ Emes,' a citizen of Bethlehem, they are in- 
formed the city is full, on account of the persons re- 
sorting to pay tribute. Mary says, 

Yondyr is an hous of haras, that stant be the wey, 
Amonge the bestys, herberyd may ye be. 

***** 

Maria, — In this por' logge my chawmer I take, 
her for to A byde the blyssyd byrth 
of hym, that all this werd dude make : — 
be twyn my' sydys I fele he styrth. 

Joseph accordingly brings her in. Mary requires 
him to depart, and he does so, telling her he will 



69 

^ seke su^ mydwyvys.' He meets two, whose help he 
desires for Mary, which they promise. 
Salomee. — My name is Salomee, all men me knowe, 

iFor a mydwyff of wurthy fame ; 
Whan women travayl grace doth growe, 

There as I come I had nevyr shame. 
Zelomye. — And I am Zelomye, men knowe my name, 

We tweyn, with the, wyl go to gedyr, 
& help thy wyff, fro hurt & grame. 

Com forth, Joseph, go we streyth thedyr, 

The Midwives, being alarmed at a great light 
within, decline entering. Joseph returns ^ inquires of 
Mary how she fares, and tells her the midwives are 
without, ^ & dar not come in for lyght that they se.'C*) 

\hic Maria suhridendo dicat maria,"] 
Maria, — The myght of the godhede, in his Mageste, 
wyl not be hyd now, at this whyle ; 
The chylde that is born wyl p'ue his modyr fre, 
A very clene mayde, & th'r for I smyle. 
Joseph. — Why do ye lawghe, wyff, ye be to blame ; 
I pray yow, spowse, do no mor so ; 
In happ, the mydwyuys wyl take it to grame, 

&, at yo' nede, helpe wele non do ; 
Iff ye haue nede of mydwyuys, lo, 

P'auentur, thei wyl gon hens, 
Yr for be sad, & ye may so. 

And wynnyth all the mydwyuis good diligens. 



IPassages paralleled ; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



(^) Protevan. xiv. — 9. And the 
midwife went along with him, and 
stood in the cave. 

10. Then a bright cloud overshadow- 
ed the cave, and the midwife said, 
This day my soul is magnified, for 
mine eyes have seen surprising things, 
and salvation is l)rought forth to Israel. 

11. But on a sudden the cloud be- 
came a great light in the cave, so that 



their eyes could toot bear it. 

12. But the light gradually decreas- 
ed, until the infant appeared, and suck- 
ed the breast of his mother Mary. 

13. Then the midwife cried out, and 
said, How glorious a day is this, where- 
in mine eyes have seen this extraordi- 
nary sight ! 

14 And the midwife went out from 
the cave, and Salome met her. 
I 



70 

Maria. — % Husbond, I p'y yow, dysplese yow nowtb, 
You that I lawghe & gret joye haue ; 
Her' is the chylde, this werde hath wrought, 
born now of me, that all thynge schal saue. 

Joseph. — I aske yow grace, for I dyde raue. 

gracyous childe ! I aske mercy ; 
As thou art lord, Sc I but knaue, 

ffor geue me now, my gret foly. 
^ Alas, mydwyuis ! what haue I seyd I 

1 pray yow com to us mor' ner', 
ffor her' I fynde my wyff a mayd, 

&, in her arme, a chylde hath her', 
bothe mayd & raodyr sch' is, in ffer 

That gode wole haue, may nevyr mor' fayle, 
Modyr on erth was nevyr ncm cler, 

With owth sche had, in byrth, travayle. 
Zelomy. — % In byrth, travayle must sche nedys haue^ 

Or ellys no chylde of her' is born. 
Joseph, — I pray yow, dame, & ye vow'ch sa'ue, 

com se the chylde, my wyff beforn. 
Salome. — ^ Grete god be in this place ! 

swete systyr, how far ye ? 
Maria, — I thank the fadyr, of his hyg grace, 

His owyn son, & my chylde, her' ye may se. 
Zelomy. — % All heyl Mary ! & ryght good mom ! 

Who was mydwyfe of this ffayr chylde ? 
Maria,"— liQf that no thynge wyl leaue for lorn. 

Cent me this babe, & I mayd mylde. 
Zelomy. — % With honde lete me now towch and fele. 

Yf ye haue nede of medycyn, 
I xal yow comforte, & help ryght wele. 

As other women, yf ye haue pyn. 
Maria. — % Of this fayr byrth, that her is myn, 

Peyne ner grevynge fele I ryght non ; 
1 am clene mayde, & pure virgyn, 

Tast with yo' hand, yo' self a Ion. 
\hic palpat Zelomye beatam v'ginem dicens] 



71 

Zelomy is satisfied that ' a fayre chylde of a may- 
don is born/ and * his modyr nott hurte of virgynite.' 

Salome — ^ It is not trewe, it may nevyr be, 
That bothe be clene I can not be leve. 
A mayd's mylke nev' man dyde se, 

Ne woman ber' chylde, with owte grett greve. 

[hie tangit Salomee Marie, <^ ciC arescerit man* ei' 
vlulando <5f quasi flendo dicit.'] 

Salomee exclaims, that for her unbelief her hand 
is ^ded, & drye, as claye,* and ^styfF, as a stykke.'(^) 
She prays to God to be relieved, reminding him of 
her alms and other good deeds. (•") This draws down 
an angel, who desires her to worship the child, and 
to touch his clothes. C') She goes to Mary, and asks 
forgiveness, who repeats the angel's request, 

Ihic Salomee tangit fimhriam Christi dicens,'] 

and her hand is immediately restored. C^) 



IPassages paralleled; from the Apoc. N. Test.] 



C) Protevan. xiv. — 18. ^ Then 
Salome went in, and the midwife said, 
Mary, shew thyself, for a great contro- 
versy is risen concerning thee. 

19. And Salome received satisfaction. 

20. But her hand was withered, and 
she groaned bitterly, 

21. And said, Wo to me, because of 
mine iniquity ; for I have tempted the 
living God, and my hand is ready to 
drop off. 

C') Then Salome made her suppli- 
cation to the Lord, and said, O God of 
my fathers, remember me, for I am of 
the seed of Abraham, and Isaac, and 
Jacob. 



23. Make me not a reproach among 
the children of Israel, but restore me 
sound to my parents. 

24. For thou well knowest, O Lord, 
that I have performed many offices of 
charity in thy name, and have received 
my reward from thee. 

(c) Protevan. xiv. — 25. Upon this 
an angel of the Lord stood by Salome, 
and said, The LordGod hath heard thy 
prayer, reach forth thy hand to the 
child, and carry him, and by that means 
thou shalt be restored. 

(d) 28. And straightway Salome was 
cured. 



. 72 

The MIDWIVES take their leave, Salomee declar- 
ing that. 

In every place I schal telle this, 
Of a dene mayde that god is born ; 

&, in our lyknes, god now clad is, 
Mankend to save that was for lorn ; 

his modyr a mayde, as sche was beforn ; 
Natt fowle polutyd, as other women be, 

but fayr, 8t fresch, as rose on thorn, 
Lely whyte, clene with pur virginyte. 



END OF COVENTRY MYSTERIES, 
FROM APOCRYPHAL STORY, 



illustrations antj 9ltitsttions» 



" Sir, — it is the great excellence of a writer to put into his book as much i 
s book will hold." Johnson to BoswelL 



I.—COUNCIL OF THE TRINITY: 



** The common definition of man is false : he is not a reasoning animal. The 
best you can predicate of him is, that he is an animal capable of reasoning." 

fVarburton. 



^ Speculum Witut CI)rtstt: tl)e bofee tl)at te clepiH 
tl)e Miuont of tU Uimt'ta Ipffe of our lorBe 3('l)u 

A FOLIO volume in MS., written on vellum and bearing the above 
title, is in my possession. It gives an account of a great Council in 
heaven, which from the ensuing extracts will appear similar to that 
in Mystery IV. C) In some instances the language of each is al- 
most literally alike ; in others, that of the MS. is more amplified. 
After various opinions during a long discussion between Mercye, 
Sothfastnes, Pees, and Rytewisnes, concerning the means of 
making satisfaction for the sinful fall of man, ' Pees,' proposed 
that ' for a fynal dome in this matyr, let be made a gode dethe of 
man, so that one be fo'nden withorten synne, that may & woUe 
innocently, & for charite, suffre deth for man.' To this they 
all assented, and ' thei askeden amonge hemself whether that one 
myght be founden that schulde fulfiUe and do this dede of charite.' 
' Than Mercye toke with hur Reson, & sought amonge alle 

C) Page 38, ante. 



74 

the ordres of Aungeles in heuen, to se whether eny of hem 
wer' able to do this dede ; hot there was none. Also Sothfastnes 
sought fro heuen to the clowdes bynethen, whether ther were eny 
creatur that myght p'forme it ; & thei weren alle vnable. Ryght- 
wisnes went down to erthe, & sought amonge the hyghe hilles, & 
into the depe pytte of helle, whether ther weren eny man that 
myght take this good & innocent dethe ; but ther was none fo'nden 
clene of synne, ne not the childe of one dayes birthe.' 

Upon this they were greatly grieved : — ' than seyd pees wot ye 
not wele that the p*phet that seyde ther' is none foundin that may 
done gode ; afterward he potteth to more, & selth, till it cotn to 
one ; this on man may be he that gafe the sentence aforsaide of 
man'es saluacion. Wherefore prey we hym that he wol help & 
fulfille it in dede ; for to hym speketh the p'phete aftre in the for- 
seyd psalme, saying, Lorde thou schalt saue man, and bestowe 
aftre thi mykel mercy. Bot than was a question amonge the 
sustres, commyttid to Reson for to determyn, which p'sone of 
thre, Fader, & Sonn, & holigoste, one Gode, schulde be com 
man' & do this m'cyfull dede. Then seyde Reson, that, for als 
mykell as the p'son of the fader is propurly dredfull & myghty, 
the p'son of the son alle wyse and witty, ande the p'sone of the 
holi goste most benygne and godely, the seconde p'son semeth 
moste conuenient. ^ Ande, whan Reson had seyd this verdyt, the 
Fader seide it was his wille that it schulde be soe, the Son gaffe 
gladly his assent therto, ande the holi goste seide he wolde 
worcke ther to also. And than fallyng downe alle the holi spirits 
of heuen, and sou'eynly thonking the Holi Trinite, the four sustres 
aforsed weren kyssed ande made accorde.* 

The MS. proceeds to relate ' what Seynt Jerome, wrytyng of 
hir life, seyd' concerning the religious education and exercises of 
the Virgin Mary in the temple, after she was left there at three 
years of age by her parents. It then relates that : — 

' Whan plente of the tyme of g'ce was com'en, in the whiche 
the hyghe trinite ordeyned to save manky'de, that was dampned 
throughe the synne of Adam ; for the grete charite that he hadde 
to man'kynde, stirying hym in his g'te m'cye, & also the prayer/ 



15 



8c the inst'ance of alle the blissed spirits of heuen, aft' that the 
blissed maiden marie wedded to Joseph, was gone home to Na- 
zarethj the fader of heuen called to hyni the Archangele Gabriel, 
and seyd to hym in this maner ;- — goo to our der' dought' marye 
the spouse of Josep, the which is most cher to vs of alle creatures 
in erthe, and saye to hir, that my blissed son hathe coueyted hir 
schappe and hir bewte, & chose hir to his moder, & th'fore praye 
hir that sche resceyue hym gladly ; for, by hir, I haue ordeyned 
the hele & the saluacion of all' man'kynde ; — & I wole forgete 
& forgyue the wronge that hath be' done to me of hym her' before. 
^ And so, anone, Gabriel rysyng vp gladde & ioycunde, toke 
his fleyte fro' the hyghe heuen to erthe ; ande in a moment he 
was in mannes licknes byfore the virgyn marie, that was in hir 
pryue chan'ber that tyme closed, & in hir p'yers or in hir medita- 
cions, p'auentur' redying the p'phecye of ysaye touchyng the In- 
carnacion. And yit also, swyftly as he flowe, his lorde was come 
byfore, & he fonde alle the holy trinite comen or his message. 
For thou schalt vndirstonde that this blissed Incarnacion was the 
highe werke of alle the holi trinite, thoughe it be that only the 
p'sone of the son was incarnate & bycome man. ^ Bot now be 
warr her', that thou erre not in ymagynacion, th'fore take her* a 
gen'ale doctryne in this meter, now what tyme thou herest, or 
thinkest, of the trinyte, or of the godhed, or of gostly creatures, 
as aungels & soules, the which thou maiste not see with thi bodely 
eyze, and thi proper kynd, ne fele with thi bodely wytte, streyne 
not to ferre in that mat'er, occupye not thi wytte thererwith, as 
thou woldest undirstonde it by kyndely resonne, for it wil not be, 
while we be in this b'ustouse body, liuynge her' in erthe. And, 
th'fore, whan thou herest eny suche thinge, in by leue that passeth 
thi kyndely reso'ne, trowe, sothfastly, that is sothe as holi chirche 
techeth, & go now forth & so thou schalte byleue.' 

After the salutation, which is detailed at great length, the angel 
requests Mary's consent to become ' goddes moder,' which she 
complies with. 

' Anone withoute dwellyng goddes son entred into hir wombe, 
and, throwgh worcking of the holi goste, was made man^ in ver- 



76 

rey flesch & blode, taken of hir body, ande, not as othe' children, 
conceyued & born by kynde bene schapen, membre aft' membre, 
ande aft' the soule sched into the bodye, bot anon, at the firste 
insta'nce, he was full schappe in alle membris, and alle hole man 
in body & soule, but, never the les, ful lytel in quantite ; for aft' 
he waxed more & more kyndely than oth' children done : so that, 
at the fyrste, he was full perfyte god and man, as wyse ande as 
mygty as he is nowe. Ande, when this was done, Gabriel, 
knelynge downe with our ladye, &, sone aft', with hir rysyng vp, 
toke curteysly his leue of hir, with a devoute & a lowe bowyng to 
the erthe.' 

According with the above account of the incarnation is the 
information in Erasmus's Exposition of the Creed, that ' the re- 
lygyouse contemplacyon of good & godly men hathe taughte — 
that the holye ghoste toke one of the moste purest droppes of 
bloode out of the vergine Maries herte, and layde it downe into 
her matrice ; and that hereof, sodeynly, was made the perfighte 
body of a man, soo smalle as is a lytle spyder whiche is but euen 
now cropen forthe from the egee, but yet with all the membres 
fuUe fynysshed and perfyght ; and that, ia the same momente, a 
soule was infused and putte into it, beynge euen verve than, forthe- 
with, as perfyghte in all powers and qualytyes, as it is now in 
heuen,'(^) 

If this, and the last paragraph extracted from the MS. be com- 
pared with the scene in the Mystery y(^) the simihtude between the 
curious narration in each will be as apparent as that between the 
Council of the Trinity in the Mystery and the same event in the 
Speculum FitcB Christi. 



(*) Erasmus on the Crede, 8vo. i533. art. the Descent. 
C') Page 44, ante. 



77 



11.— THE BRETHREN OF THE HOLY TRI- 
NITY, OF ST. BOTOLPH WITHOUT AL- 
DERSGATE. 



** The fourme of the Trinity was fonnden in Manne, that was Adam our" fore- 
fadir, of earth oon personne; and Eve, of Adam, the secunde persone; and 
of them both was the third persone. At the deth of a manne three Beliis 
shiilde be ronge, as his knyll, in worscheppe of the Trinetee ; and for a wo- 
manne, who was the secunde persone of the Trinetee, two Beliis should be 
rungen." 

Ancient Homily for Trinity Sunday. 



An Episode is often pleasant to the bystander, and always to the 
person making it ; with whom it is sometimes the consequence of a 
sudden recollection — * this puts me in mind of that:' so, while writ- 
ing the last article of the Council of the Trinity in Heaven, I was 
reminded of a Guild of the Holy Trinity of the City of London. 
If the reader please he may look at the following account of it ; 
if he have no taste for such matters I am sorry for it ; he can pass 
to something more likely to amuse him, and I apologize for the 
interruption. 

This fraternity of the Holy Trinity was founded in the forty" 
eighth year of Edward IH. 1373, in honour of the body of Christ, 
and to maintain thirteen wax lights^ burning about the sepulchre 
in the time of Easter in the said Church, and to find a Chaplain, 
Their chief day of solemnity was on Trinity Day to hear Mass in 
honour of the body of Christ, and of the Holy Trinity, and to 
make their offerings. — The Brotherhood consisted of a Messuage 
House and Tenement called Trinity Hall, otherwise the common 
Hall of the Fraternity or Guild of the Holy Trinity, founded in 
the Church of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, and also eight Messuages 
and Tenements, commonly called The Trinity , also situate beneath 

K 



78 

Trinity Hall.* So far this is Stovv's account; to which may 
be added that, in Catholic worship thirteen Candles are an alle- 
gory of Christ and the twelve apostles, and that in one of its cere- 
monies, the twelve candles denoting the twelve apostles are extin- 
guished at intervals during successive parts of the service, until 
one only is left which represents Christ deserted by the disciples, 
and in the end that one is put out to signify his death .^ 



a Stow's London, vol. i. p. 613, &c. 

^ * The Evening-Office of the Holy Week which the Church performs on Wednes- 
daxff Thursday y Sf Friday before Easter, 1760,' 8vo., of which I have a copy in my 
possession, marked * Ex Bibliothecd F. F. Min. Angl. Londini," contains the sig- 
nification of certain candles. 'In the Evening of Wednesday, Thursday, and Fri- 
day, the Church performs a solemn office called Tenehrce. — The name of Tenehrce 
is given to it from the ceremony of extinguishing all the candles during the course 
of it, till at last it is finished in total darkness ; which is the signification of the 
word Tenehrce. — The six candles on the altar, and the fifteen candles on the 
Epistle side, all burning at the beginning of the Office, signify the light of faith 
preached by the prophets and Jesus Christ : of which Faith the fundamental 
article is the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity, represented by the triangular 
CANDLESTICK. At the repetition of the fourteen Antiphons in the matins and 
lauds, fourteen of the candles in the triangular candlestick are extinguished ; 
and at the six last verses of the Benedictus, those on the altar are put out ; to 
teach us that the Jews were totally deprived of the light of faith when they put 
our Saviour to death. But Xhe fifteenth candle, that represents the light of the 
world, Jesus Christ, is only hidden for a time under the altar, and afterwards 
brought out again still burning, to signify that though Christ, according to his 
humanity, died and was laid in the sepulchre, yet he was always alive, accord- 
ing to his divinity, by which lie raised his body again to life.' The darkness, 
signifies the darkness at the crucifixion ; and * the noise made at the end of the 
Prayer, represents the confusion of nature for the loss of its author.' 

As in the above ceremonial the Trinity is represented by a triangular candle- 
stick, so also it is represented by a triangular candle. An engraving by Galle, 
tigmes the triangular candle as standing in a candlestick held by an Angel. I 
subjoin from recollection a sketch of this representation of the Trinity. 




79 

From the Chartulary of this religious Guild in my possession, 
I am enabled to relate the following particulars concerning it. 

The volume commences with the Romish Calendar on Vel- 
lum, in which are marked obytes of the brethren. It is followed 
by the statutes of the Order : one ordains, that the priest shall be 
charged by the wardens of the year, for to do his mass, winter 
and summer, by five o'clock, ' sayinge by fore masse, duly, a 
Mttnmt of t{)e €^rpnptee :' another directs, * that in' the sun- 
day next aft' alle sowlen day, the preste schal rede openlyche, 
stondynge in the pulpyte, alle the names of the bretheren and 
the sustren that ben on lyue.' A ' dirige' was also ordained on 
the Sunday night after ' alle sowlen day,' and on the morrow a 
requiem for the dead ' bretheren and sustren,' at which each 
brother and sister should attend and offer * an halfe-peny,' or be 
' vppon peyne of a pounde of wexe.' It was directed, ' Also, gif 
eny of the bretherhode be a losed of eny thefte, or he be an comm' 
contekour, or com'n hasardour, or of eny oth' wycked fame, wher- 
fore by, that the co'pany may ben a apayred, or defamed, it is ordey- 
ned that thei ben yputte oute of the breth' hode.' It was further 
ordained that the priest should have ' for his lyflode' ten marks' 
annually, and ^ an dowble hode of the colour of the breth'hode ;' 
And also * that he be meke and obedient vnto the qwer' in alle 
diuine seruyces dvrynge hys t'me, as custome is in the citee 
amonge alle othe' p'stes.' The statutes are succeeded by lists 
of the brothers and sisters in different years. The first list is 
preceded by the form of the Priest's address, on reading their 
names, in ihe following words : * Gode bretheren and susteren : 
it is for to weten and knowen, that the bygynnynge of this bre- 
therhode of grete deuocio'n, eu'y ma' paynge a peny, forto 
fynde xiij taperes about the sepulcre of c'ste at Estre, in the 
chirche of seynt Botulphe, withoute Alderesgate, in Loundon, 
Aft' that, throug'e more gretter deuocio'n, & steryuge vnto the 
worschippe of god, it' was yturne in' to a frat'nyte of CJje ^Oly 
Ccpnpte, nougt with stondynge the fyndynge eu'y yere, the 
may'tenynge of the forsayde xiij taper's ; of the whiche breth'hode 
thes' were thei.' — ^Then before the names, is this notice ; ' At 



80 

the bygynnyijge of this frat'nyte, the wliicbe was bygun'e in the 
yere of kynge Edwarde the thredde, one and fy fly "" thes weren the 
bygy'neres th'of, and maysteres, & gou'nour's, for the first yer' ; 
that is to sayen: — Philippus at Vyne; Aghes^ vx\ eius ; 
Joh'es Bockynge. These betheth names of the bretheren, 
& the siisteren, the whiche eiitreden in to the forsayde brether- 
hode, i' her tyme/ The names of fifty-three ' bretheren/ and 
twenty-nine ' susteren/ immediately follow. 

In the lists of this fraternity I find in the lOdi year of Henry 
IV., the names "of * Thos' de Berkyng, Abbas de Seynt 
Osyes. Joh'es Roos, Armiger. Galfra' Paynell, Armiger. D'us 
Joh'es Watford, P'or s'ti' Barthi'. D'us Joh'es Yonge, supp'or' 
s'ti' Barthi'. Ric's Lancastre, Rex de Armis. Kat'ina, vx' ej'. 
Ric's Haye Armig'. Joh'a, vx' ej'. Will's Yrby, Armiger P'or' 
s'ti Barthi'. Ric's Maydestone, Armig. Will's Mounsewe, Ar- 
mig'i, cu' Counte de Westm'land. Rob's Strangweys, Armiger, 
ibid. Rogerus Audelby, Rector de White Chapell. Will's La- 
syngby, Armig. D'us Joh'es Newport, Rector de Grascherche.' 
In the 2 Henry V. ^ Ric'us Derh'm, Ep'us landau' ' was the 
Master of the Brotherhood. 

In the Volume are copies of the grants, charters, patents, 
feoffments, wills, and other securities for the property of which 
the brotherhood were seized ; besides their own deeds of transfer, 
leases, and agreements. These Entries shew that the landed 
property of the Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity, consisted of 
houses in Aldersgate-street, the Barbican, Lamb-alley, Fanchurch- 
street, and Long-lane ; one of these was held on the annual pay- 
ment of a rose, others in fee. They were proprietors of the Sa- 
racen's head inn, and the Falcon on the hoop brewery. In the 
14th year of king Richard II., Sir Raufi" Kesteven, parson of St. 
Botolph, and the two Churchwardens, granted a lease for twenty 
years to John Hertyshorn of the Saracen's head, with the appur- 
tenances, at the yearly rent of ten marks ; the appurtenances were 
two houses adjoining on the north side, and were include^d in that 

a Stow says, the forty-eighth year of Edward III. 



81 

rental as worth eight shillings each by the year, and one on the 
south side, was valued at ten shillings. ' In the xsj yer of kyng 
Harry the vj'®/ the bretheren received, ' For the rent of ij yere 
of Wyll'm Wylkyns, for the Sarresyn head v. li, vjs. viij^Z. — paynge 
by the yer liijs. iiij^/ and ' of the Faucon on the hope, for the 
same ij yer vi. li, that is to say, payng' by the yer' iij li ;' but the 
same year they demised the Falcon brewhouse to Robert Halle 
and John Walpole, brewers, for four years, at eighty-four shillings 
per annum. Six years before, there is, in the churchwardens' 
accounts, an item for ' kerving and peinting of the seigne of the 
faucon, vis.' 

Some of the personals of this fraternity are interesting. By 
^ Bille endented, made the xviij day of Juyn' the iij^"^ yere of 
kyng Edwarde the iiij"',' the then master and wardens acknow^ 
ledge to have received from the rhen late master and wardens, the 
goods thereinafter described, among which are the following items : 

' A myssall, newe bounde, with derys leder, garnysbhed wyth 
sylk ; whereof the seconde lefe begynnelh, Asp'git aqua henedHttf 
with claspys 8c burdons, weying iiij vnc.^ iij ctH and a half. 

' A chaleys of sylver & gilt, with a crucifyx' in the fote & a pa- 
teyn' to the same, with Ct)C <SLliX[,\tZ * enamelyd, weying xxv vnc\ 

' [t. RoUe of velom', cou'ed with a goldeskyn, contenyng diu'se 
pagent's paynted and lemenyd with gold, that is to say, of ^f)C 
^015 Cnntte» SeyntFabyan,andSeyntSebastyan,&,SeyntBotulff; 



^ * For the Trinity, Holy Cliiirch hath chosen to make the similitude of the 
father, an olde man with a long gray beard : and for the sonne, a man hanging 
on the crosse : and for knowledge of the holie Ghost, a dove.'— The Beehive of 
theRomishe Churchy Lond. 1579, 8vo. p. 192. 

' God the Father, having formerly appeared as the Ancient of Days, we may 
paint him in that form now. The Son took upon him human nature, and so may 
he represented as a Man. The Holy Ghost sometimes appeared in the form of 
a Dove, at another like tongues of fire. Those who by colours, artificially dis- 
posed, represent the Trinity under such figures as these, do nothing but what 
the authority of Scripture permits and commands.' — Sander, de Ador. Imag: 
1. 1. c. 4. (^Conformity between Ancient and Modern Ceremonies. Lond. 1745. 8vo. 
p. 185.) 

The Cathedral Church of Norwich is dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Before 



82 

and the last pagent of the terement, & gen'all obyte, of the bre- 
ther'o, & suster'n, that be passed to god ; with clayne obseruances 
& prayers, to stere the peple to the more devocion toward' the 

SEYDE BRETHERHODE. 

' A keybande of derys leder, \vy th a keveryng of cheverell, wy tb 
purses thereuppon', garnysshed, conteyning iij keyes, made and 
ordeyned alwey to be in the kepyng of the maist' for the tyme 
beyng, accordyng to the statutes and ordenaunces thereof made, 
as it apperith in this blake boke, the xxxj lefe/ 

Then there is the description of the last mentioned book : 
namely, ' A%iakt lUegi^tte 2Bofee, with a kalender, in the which 
is writen the dedes, testament's, wylles, evidences, & other writyng's 
conc'uyng' the ly velode of the breth'hode ; & there registred for 
the well & more surete of the same.' This Blake Registre 
Boke is that from which I am transcribing. 

The annual accounts of this brotherhood evidence the pains they 
took to entice people by their exhibitions. As the beginning 
of the fraternity grew out of the glare of thirteen wax tapers, they 
kept up these lights by the following statute : ^ Also there ben 
ordeyned xiii tapers of wex, and eu'y taper of sex pounde of wex, 
with dysches of pewtere, accordynge th'to, forto brenne about the 
sepulcr' on estres eue', & estres day, al so longe as the mane' es 
in' holy chirche.' They always had store of wax. They enjoin* 
ed attendance at mass ' vpon peyne of a pound of wex ;' on 
the transfer of their gear from the old to the new wardens, their 
' paynted cofres' and ' spruce chests' conteyned ' long tapers, 
short tapers, long torchys, short torchys,' and ^ wex ;' they al- 
ways 'gadyred' of the people for 'lygth,' and there are nume- 



the Reformation^ the imago principalis, the principal image in the road loft, now 
the organ loft, was an image of the Holy Trinity, which was represented by 
a weak old man, with Christ on the cross between his knees, and a dove on his 
breast; this image was richly gilt. In 1443, Rob. Norwych, Esq. gave to it 
his silver collar which was presented to him by the emperor; and in 1499, 
Lady Margaret Shelton put about it a gold chain of 25 SS. weighing eight 
ounces, with four small jewels, one great jewel, and a rich enamelled rose in 
gold, hanging ihQreou,—Blomefield's Norwich, 1806, 8vo. vol. ii. p. 29. 



83 

rous charges * for the niakyng of the braunche hyforne 
X\)Z CrinptC, and waste of wexJ 

Perhaps the branch was that which, also in olden time, was 
called a ' Jesse/ from a block of wood being carved into the 
figure of a man, representing Jesse, l^^ing on his back, with a tree 
or branch growing out of the stomach, as genealogies are some- 
times drawn. The carver's 'Jesse,' was a personification of 
' There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a 
Branch shall grow out of his roots/ (Isaiah, xi. 1.) 

From Jesse's root behold a branch arise, 

Whose sacred flower witli fragrance fills the skies ; 

Th' aBtherial spirit o'er its leaves shall move, 

And on its top descend the mystic dove. Pope, 

The ' Jesse' was a distinguished ornament in old pageants and 
shows : when introduced into churches, the branch was filled with 
lighted tapers ; and, hence, perhaps, the cluster of brass candle- 
sticks in a church is still called the branch. 

In the accounts of the wardens of this brotherhood for ' the x 
yer of king Harry the vi%' there is the charge of an ' item, to 
the wexchaundeler', for making of the sepulcr', lyght iij tymes, and 
of other dyuers lights, that longyn to ^\)Z €^nnite, in dyus places 
in the chirche, Ivijs. xd.' — a large sum in those times, and must 
have produced a prodigious illumination. 

From the third century when, besides adopting other pagan cere- 
monies, * they also lighted torches to the martyrs in the day-time 
as the heathens did to their gods,' * the use of torches and tapers 
in churches, both by day ^nd night, has prevailed in Catholic wor- 
ship to the present hour ; and Catholic allegorists have contrived 
to spiritualize these burning ornaments of their temples for the 
edification of the devout. According to their account, candles or 
tapers represent Christ ; the wax, signifies his flesh ; the fire, his 
deity; the wick, his humanity ; the light, his doctrine. The wick 
further signifies humility ; the moulded wax, obedience ; the 



* Sir Isaac Newion on Daniel, 4to. p. 207. 



84 

ilame, the love of God. Also, the wax and wick represent body 
and soul ; and the light, the shining of the faith.^ 

This brotherhood of the Trinity contributed their share to the 
vulgar gratification of the deluded people in other ways. For 
the years from the * xxj to the xxv* yer' of Reyn'g of kyng 
harry the vj'%' there are charges * for p'stis hir', for repaVons, for 
costis on the ^rj^tipte ^tJtltiap, <5f on the eviuj for mete & drynk, 
& Stately Clothes, mynstrelles, synger' ; &c. Their inventories 
evidence that they knew how to g et up popular shows and en- 
tertainments ; ihey had 'pillows of silke, reed and yellow knotts, 
banner clothes, a blake palle of blake damaske with a white crosse, 
a staynede bordere with the fyve wondys of owre lorde, and a 
border of blak with the kyng's armys and estr^ge ffethers con- 
teyning' in len'th iij ell's iij q'rt'rs.' Doubtless these fripperies 
were borne in their public processions, for one of which there is 
a positive statute in these words : — ' Also gif it by falle, that eny 
of the breth'hede falle seeke, fyue myleeche wayes aboute London', 



a Some one who had a spite against St. Kentigern, put out all the fires in 
his monastery, whereupon he snatched a green hazel bough, and in the name of 
the Holy Trinity blessed it and blowed upon it, and immediately by fire sent 
from Heaven the bough produced a great flame, and he lighted the candles for 
the vigils, ' wherefore the light ceased from the wood,' — Capgrave Vit . S. Kentig, 
f. 208. (Patrick's Reflect, on Devot. of Romish Church, 8vo. 1674, p. 557.) 

2. February (Candlemas Day) is called ' Cand/emas, because before mass is 
said that day, the church blesses her candles for the whole year, and makes a 
procession with hallowed or blessed candles in the hands of the faithful.'— 
Posey of Prayers, or the Key of Heaven, 1799, iBmo. p. 15. 

The Church ordained, that lighted tapers should be carried upon Candlemas 
day, in order to avail itself of a custom continued from the ancient Romans, 
who marched in procession, with lighted tapers and candles, in honour of F^ftrMo, 
the mother of Mars, the God of War ; and sacrificed to Februus, Pluto, the 
God of Hell, that he might be merciful to the souls of their friends. The Ro- 
man women on the same day kept the Feast of Candles, in honour of Pi'o- 
serpine, who was so beautiful, that Pluto carried her off, and her parents 
sought her in Hell, with lights and tapers. Pope Sergius adopted this practice 
by ordaining ' that Christians should, upon this day, walk round the Church 
with consecrated tapers in their hands, lighted up to the honour of the Mother 
of God.'— T/ie Legend, Fr. (Coof. A. & M. Cer, p. 113.) 



85 

and dyeth there, that gif the wardaynes of that yere ben ysent aft', 
than it is ordeyned that thei schullen wende, and fecche home the 
body, to London' ; and that alle the bretheren be redy, at her 
warnynge, and go agens the body, with outen the citee, townes 
ende, for to bry ge the body in to the place, with worschyppe," 
These were means that they seem to have used, according to their 
own words ' to stere the peple to the more devocion toward 
THE bretherhode/ Of pure devotion towards the Supreme 
Being, they appear to have been wholly ignorant. 

No portion of Scripture Was ever possessed by this frater- 
nity ; for the volume repeatedly registers their entire property at 
different periods, and mentions nothing of the kind except their 
'myssall;* most likely overlaid by prayers to the saints, notices of 
indulgences for sin, and pictures of unedifying superstitions. To 
be sure there was their ' Rolle of velom with the Pagent of 
^fit^nl^ ^limit^ paynted and lemenyd with gold, and the an- 
nual charge for making the branch and lighting it up ; but what- 
ever ](|oIp Ccinitp was lemenyd on this Pagent, it is impossible 
to suppose that such a display could suggest an idea of Him, who 
is a Spirit. There is, however, a figure which may have been that 
upon their pageant. It frequently occurs.* ' They in their 
churches, and Masse bookes, doe paint the Trinitie with 
THREE faces: for our mother the holie Churchdld learne 
that at Rome, where they were wont to paint or carve Janus 
with two faces. And then further, there is written in John, that 
there are three in heaven which beare witnesse, the Father, the 
Worde, and the Holie ghost ; and these three are one, &c.^ then, 
of necessitie, they must be painted with three heades, or 
three faces, upon one necke/<= 

I insert an engraving of this Trinity, in all respects the same as 
a smaller one, an initial in the Salisbury Missal of 1534, fo. viii. 

* In Enchirid. Ecclesii Sarum, Paris, 1528, S-imo. vol. i. fol. xiiii. ; in va- 
rious other editions; and in the Horae B. V. Maria continually ; besides MS. 
Missals, Lyndewood's Proviuciale, &c. 

b 1 John, V. 7. 

c Beehive of the Romishe Church, Lond. 1579 j 8vo. p. 191. 

L 




The triangle in this cut, * a Trinity argent on a shield azure^ was the arms of 
Trinity Priory, Ipswich, and is figured in Mr. Taylor's Index Monasticus, (Diocese, 
Norwich,") 1821, fol. p. 96.-^ May not the triune head have been originally sug- 
gested by the three headed Saxon deity named Trigla ? Tliere is a wood cut 
of a triune headed Lucifer in Dante, ed. Venice, 1491, fol. copied by the Rev* 
T. F. Dibdiu in his ^des AlthorpiancBj vol. ii. p. 116. 



87 

John Heywood, in his ' Four P's, a very merry Enterlude of 
a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Poticary, and a Pedler/ brings in ihe 
Palmer relating that in his pilgrimages he has been at different 
parts of the world, and in enumerating them he says, 

At Saint Botulphe and Saint Anne of Buckstone 
* * * * 
Praying to them to pray for me 
Unto the blessed Trinitie.^ 

This was either the Priory of the Holy Trinity of St. Botolph 
without Aldgate, or our Brethren of the Holy Trinity of St. Bo- 
tolph without Aldersgate. Heywood, though a stern Roman Ca- 
tholic, exposes with the humour of Uliespiegel the tricks played 
on the credulous fondness of the ignorant for reliques, and ridi- 
cules the greediness and craft of the preaching friars in their pious 
frauds. He makes the Pardoner produce ' the blessed Jawbone 
of All'halowes,^ on which the Poticary swears 

—by All-halowe, yet methinketh 
That All-halowe's breath stinkith. 

Pardoner. 
Nay sirs, beholde, heer may ye see 
The great toe of the Trinitie. 
Who to this toe any money vowth, 
And once may role it in his mouth, 
All his life after, I undertake, 
He shall never be vext with the tooth ake. 

By the turn given to the Poticary's answer, it seems likely th-at 
Heywood had in his eye the figure with the three heads in one. 

Poticary. 
I pray you turn that relique about : 
Either the Trinity had the gout. 
Or els, because it is three toes in one, 
God made it as much as three toes alone.'' 

** Dodsley's Old PlayS; edit. 1744, vol. i. p. 88. 



8S 

The Pardoner bids that pass, and climaxes the absurdity b}' 
presenting the ' buttock-bone of Pentecost.^ " Gross as all this 
is, Hey wood had as little design to scandalize the belief of his 
own church, as his patron, Sir Thomas More, had by his philo- 
sophical romance of Utopia. He was a great favourite with 
Queen Mary, and on the restoration of the Protestant ascendancy 
with Elizabeth, he fled from his native country to secure the exer- 
cise of his faith without hazard to his life, and died in exile.** 

Personifications of the supreme attributes have been accom- 
modated to popular understanding in almost every possible way 
from the earliest ages. By an inquirer into the ancient worship 
of the Deity under the grossest form that, to apprehension in 
these times can be represented by the artisl, the English reader 
is acquainted with two statues at the temple of Hierapolis, re- 
presenting the active productive Power, and the passive productive 
Power. ' Between both was a third figure with a dove on his 
head, which some thought to be Bacchus. This was the Holy 
Spirit, the first begotten Love or plastic Nature (of which the 
Dove was the image when it really deigned to descend upon 
Man),*" proceeding from and consubstantial with Both; for all 
Three were but personifications of OneJ'^ Although it is rather 
foreign to my purpose, yet it is not a departure from the subject, 
to mention a curious anecdote which Bishop Patrick says is gravely 
related by the biographers of St. Clara de Monte Falconis : — 
that after her death, there was found in her gall a plain testimony 
of the Holy Trinity, consisting of three balls of equal figure, colour, 
and size, and of equal weight, one weighing the weight of two and 
also of three, yet all three weighing no more than one.^ 



* Dodsley's Old Plays, edit. 1744, vol. i. p. 101. 

^ Ritson's Bibliog. Poetica, p. 242. From whence it appears ,that Hey wood 
died at Merhlin in 1544. He evidently took his * Four PV from the Par- 
doner's tale by Chaucer. 

^ [' Matt, c.-iii. ver. 17.'] 

d A Discourse, &c. by Richard Payne Knight, Esq. London ; printed by 
Spilsbury, 4to. 1786. p. 146. 

« Patrick on Devot. of Rom, Church, p. '273^ 



89 

" A desire of relieving the reader's taedium may possibly excuse 
a wider deviation. It is well known that the personality of the 
Devil has been exemplified by extraordinary personifications of 
him, and by relations of his appearance under almost every 
form; but a personation that he is represented to have as- 
sumed in Hertfordshire, is accompanied by circumstances that 
have never, perhaps, been paralleled. In turning over John 
Bagford's collection of Title-pages at the British Museum, 
(Harl. MSS. 5419), I fiod one in his own writing, from a tract 
that must have been so rare at that time, that he could not possess 
it, or his collecting hand would have mercilessly torn off the title- 
page; and I suspect it to have been almost, if not quite unique, for 
its existence is not now traceable by me after very long and diligent 
inquiry. Although, therefore, I can do no more than lay before 
the reader the following copy that I made from Bagford's copy, 
yet that is sufficient to inform him of all that he can perhaps ever 
know of the alleged event. Here it is : — 

' The Devil seen at St. Alban's, Being a true relation, 
how the Devil was seen there, in a Cellar, in the likenesse 
of a Ram : and how a butcher came and cut his throat, and 
sold some of it, and dressed the rest for him, inviting many 
to supper, who eat of it. 

' Attested by divers letters of men of very good credit in this 
towne. 

' Printed for confutation of those that believe there are no such 
things as spirits or devils. 4to. 1648.' 



90 



III. CHRISTMAS CAROLS. 



The lewid peple than algates agre, 

And caroles singen everi' criste messe tyde, 
Not with schamfastenes hot jocondle, 

And holey bowghes aboute ; and al asydde 
The brenning fyre hem eten, and hem drinke, 

And laughen mcreli, and maken route, 
And pype, and dansen, and hem rage ; ne svvinke, 

Ne noe thynge els, twalue daye' thei wolde not. 

Lud. Coll. xLv. H. iv 



jMary's longing for the fruit on the cherry tree, and Joseph's 
refusal to gather it for her on the return of his jealousy, a re- 
jnarkable scene in one of the Coventry Plays,* is the subject of 
a Christmas Carol still sung in London, and many parts of 
England. 

From various copies of it printed at different places I am en- 
abled to present the following version : 

Joseph was an old man. 

And an old man was he. 
And he married Mary, 

Queen of Galilee. 

When Joseph was married. 

And his cousin Mary got, 
Mary proved big with child. 

By whom Joseph knew not. 



a Mystery VIII. p. 67, ante. 



91 

As Joseph and Mary 

Walk'd through the garden gay, 
Where the cherries they grew 

Upon every tree ; 

O! then bespoke Mary, 

With words both meek and mild, 
' Gather me some cherries, Joseph, 

They run so in my mind ; 
Gather me some cherries. 

For I am with_ child/ 

O ! then bespoke Joseph, 
With words most unkind, 

' Let him gather thee cherries. 
That got thee with child/ 

O ! then bespoke Jesus, 
All in his mother's womb, 

* Go to the tree, Mary, 

And it shall bow down ; 

* Go to the tree, Mary, 

And it shall bow to thee. 
And the highest branch of all 
Shall bow down to Mary's knee, 

' And she shall gather cherries 
By one, by two, by three.' 

' Now you may see, Joseph, 
Those cherries were for me.' 

O ! eat your Cherries, Mary ; 

O ! eat your Cherries now ; 
O ! eat your Cherries, Mary, 

That grow on the bough. 



92 

As Joseph was a walking, 
He heard an angel sing — 

' This night shall be born 
Our heavenly king ; 

* He neither shall be born 

In housen, nor in hall. 
Nor in the place of Paradise, 
But in an ox's stall ; 

' He neither shall be clothed, 

In purple nor in pall. 
But all in fair linen, 

As were babies all : 

^ He neither shall be rock'd 

In silver, nor in gold. 
But in a wooden cradle. 

That rocks on the mould ; 

* He neither shall be christen^ 

In white wine nor in red. 
But with the spring water 

With which we were christened/ 

Then Mary took her young Son, 
And set him on her knee — 

' I pray thee now, dear Child, 
Tell how this world shall be?' 

' This world shall be like 

The stones in the street. 
For the sun and the moon 

Shall bow down at thy feet ; 

* And upon a Wednesday 

My vow I will make, 
And upon Good Friday 
My death I will take ; 



93 

' And upon the third day 

My uprising shall be, 
And the sun and the moon 

Shall rise up with me/ 

The admiration of my earliest days, for some lines in the Cherry 
carol still remains, nor can I help thinking that the reader will see 
somewhat of cause for it : — 

He neither shall be clothed, in purple nor in pall. 
But all in fair linen, as were babies all : 

He neither shall be rock'd, in silver nor in gold, 
But in a wooden cradle, that rocks on the mould. 

A Warwickshire carol still sung, begins 

As I passed by a river side, 

And there as I did reign. 
In argument I chanced to hear 

A carnal and a crane. 

The carnal is a bird ; the word corrupted by the printer into 
reign, is the obsolete word rein, formerly used in the sense of 
run. This carol has other marks of age. 

In a volume of MSS. at the British Museum* there is ' a 
Christmas Caroll,' beginning thus : 

When cryst was born of mary fre. 
In bedlem, i' that fayre cyte, 
Angellis songen, with mirth & gle. 

In excelsis gVia. 

A second commences in this way : 

Puer nobis natus est de virgine maria. 

Be glad, lordyngs, be ye more & lesse, 
I bring you tydyngs of gladnesse. 
As gabryel me beryth wetnesse. 



» Hail. MSS. 5596. 
M 



94 

The same volume contains ^ a song on the Holly and the Ivy/ 
which I mention because ther.e is an old Carol on the same sub- 
ject, stiil printed. The MS. begins with^ 

Nay, my nay, hyt shal not be I vvys. 

Let holy hafe the maystry, as the maner ys : 

Holy stond in the hall, fayre to behold, 

Ivy stond without the dore, she ys ful sore acold. 

"Nay my nay. &c. 
Holy, & hys mery men, they dawnsyn and they syng, 
Ivy and hur maydyns, they wepyn & they wryng. 

]Vaj/ my nay, &c. 

The popularity of carol-singing occasioned the publication of 
a duodecimo volume in l642, intituled, * Psalmes or Songs of 
Sion turned into the language and set to the tunes of a strange 
land. By W(illiam) S(latyer), intended for Christmas Carols^ 
and fitted to divers of the most noted and common but solemne 
tunes, every where in this land familiarly used and knowne.' 
Upon the copy of this book in the British Museum a former pos- 
sessor has written the names of some of the tunes to which the 
author designed them to be sung ; for instance, Psalm G, to the 
tune of Jane Shore; Psalm 19, to Bar, Forster^s Dreame; 
Psalm 43, to Crimson Felvet; Psalm 47, to Garden Greene; 
Psalm 84, to The fairest 'Nymph of the Vulleys, &c.^ 



^ The adaptation of religious poetry to secular melod)' in England, is noticed 
by Siiakspeare, in the Winter's Tale, (act iv. sc. 3.). The clown relates that 
his sister being the mistress at his father's shearing feast, made four-and- 
twenty nosegays for the sheep-shearers, all good catch-singers, mostly trebles 
and bases, with * but one puritan among them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.' 

There are several collections of carols in the French language ; the only one 
that I can on the instant refer to, is a volume that I have, entitled Noels Nou- 
veaux sur les Chants des Noels anciens notez pour en faciliter le chant, par M. 
VAhbe Pellegrin, 8vo. Paris, 1785. Most of the pious carols in the volume are 
set to opera airs, and common song tunes. 

Clement Marot's translation of the Psalms into French with secular tones, 
was 60 muqh in vogue at court that all persons of note had psalms to their several 



95 

From a Carol, called Dkes and Lazarus^ I annex an amusing 
extract. 

As it fell out, upon a day, 

Rich Dives sicken'd and died, 
There came two serpents out of hell, 
His soul therein to guide. 

Rise up, rise up, brother Dives, 

And come along with me. 
For you've a place provided in hell^ 

To sit upon a serpenfs knee, 

Hov\'ever whimsical this may appear to the reader, he can 
scarcely conceive its ludicrous effect, when the metre of the last 
line is solemnly drawn out to its utmost length by a Warwick- 
shire chanter, and as solemnly listened to by the well disposed 
crowd, who seem without difficulty to believe that Dives sits on a 
serpent's knee. The idea of sitting on the knee was, perhaps, 
conveyed to the poefs mind by old wood cut representations 



occasions. King Henry II. chose the 42d. Ahisi qu^on oyt le cerf, (Like as the hart 
dotli), which he sung when a-hunting : Madame de Valentinois, who was in love, 
took the 130th, Dufond de ma pens^e, (From the bottom of my heart), which she 
^Mng €n volte : the queen's choice was the 6th, Ne vueillez pas, Sire, (Lord, in 
thy wrath), to an air of the Chant des buffons : Anthon}' king of Navarre had the 
43d, Revange moy, prens ta querelle, (Judge and revenge my cause), which he 
tuned to the Brawl of Poictiers; and the rest in Hke manner. — Florimond Ra- 
mond,Hist. Hares. (Rymer's Short View of Tragedy, p. 35.) 

Tlie most singular measure adopted for circulating the reformed opinions 
in Scotland, was the composition of ' Gude and godly bailates, changed out of 
prophaine sangs, for avoiding of sinne and harlotrie.' The title sufficiently in- 
dicates their nature and design. The air, the measure, the initial line, or the 
chorus of the ballads most commonly sung by the people at that time, were 
transferred to hymns of devotion. Unnatural, indelicate, and gross as this 
association appears to us, these spiritual songs edified multitudes at that lime. 
We must not think that this originated in any peculiar depravation of taste in 
our reforming countrymen : spiritual songs constructed upon the same prin- 
ciple were common in Italy, ('Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, i. 309. 4to) ; at 
the beginning of the Reformation the very same practice was adopted in Hol- 
iand as ia Scotland.— i>r. M'Crie's Life of Knox f vol. i. p. 365, 



96 

of Lazarus seated in Abraham's lap. More anciently, Abraham 
was frequently drawn holding him up by the sides, to be seen by 
Dives in hell. In an old book now before me,*^ they are so re- 
presented, with the addition of a devil blowing the fire under 
Dives with a pair of bellows. 

I have a ^ Christmas Carol on Peko-Tea.'^' It begins vviih 
^ Deut. xxxiii. l6. For the good will of Him that dwelt in the 
Bush;' and the author proceeds in a strange manner to relate, 

How Christ was in a manger born 
And God dwelt in a bush of thorn, 
Which bush of thorn appears to me 
The same that yields best Peko-tea. 

This bush he imagines may be the thorn that blooms in April : 

Abundant such in Berks I've seen 
Near ISlewbWy, at my native speen. 

^ ^ ^ ^ 

Now if Christ's bush of thorn we find, 
God's bush and tea bush all one kind, 
We must confess its full renown, 
God to enjoy, and Christ to crown ; 
And have its leaves grow so renown'd 
As to refresh the world around. 

He spirituahzes many subjects in succession, and inveighs with 
great bitterness against those, 

— who, readers to entangle. 

The scriptures into pieces mangle ; 
Dividing them, which truth immerses 
Into chapters, sects, and verses ; 



a Postillii Guillermij 4to. Basil, 1491. 

"^ A Christmas Carol on Peko-Tea: or, a Sacred Carol, which like Tea that is 
perfectly good and fine, will be most grateful and useful all the year round, 
from Christmass to Christmass for ever. Humbly addressed to Queen Caro- 
line, and the Princess Carolina, and all the Royal Family. By Francis Hoff- 
man. London, 1729, 8vo. pp. 16. 



97 

Full of religious fervor, and grocer zeal for cups of Peko tea, 
he concludes with this devout wish — 

May all who do these truths condemn 
Ne'er taste one single drop of them 
Here, or in New Jerusalem. 

Carols begin to be spoken of as not belonging to this century/ 
and yet no one, that I am aware of, has attempted a collection of 
these fugitives. As the carols now printed will at no distant pe- 
riod become obsolete, an alphabetical list of those in my posses- 
sion is subjoined. It excludes all that are disused at the present 
time, nor does it contain any of the numerous compositions printed 
by religious societies under the denomination of Carols. 

Christmas Carols now annually Printed. 

1. A glorious star from heaven appear'd. 

2. A jolly wassel bowl. 

3. A Virgin most pure as the Prophets did tell. 

4. All Christians pray you now attend. 

5. All Englishmen I pray you now attend. 

6. All hail the ever glad'ning morn. 

7. All hail the morn ! loud anthems raise. 

8. All honour, glory, might, and power. 

9. All you that are to mirth inclined. 

10. All you that live must learn to die. 

11. Arise, and hail the sacred day. 
13. As 1 passM by a river side. 

13. As I sat on a sunny bank. 

14. As it fell out one May morning. 

15. As it fell out upon a day, rich Dives made a feast. 

16. Attend, good people, now I pray. 

17. Away dark thoughts, awake my joys. 



a October 3; 1822, at the dinner of a city company I heard Mr. Taylor of 
Covent Garden Theatre sing a new ballad of * good old times, 'when 

Christmas had its Christmas carols, 

And ladies' sides were hoop'd like barrels. 



98 



18. Behold the grace appears. 

19. Christians awake ! salute the happy morn. 
' 20. Christmas now is drawing near at hand. 

21. Come, behold the virgin Mother. 

22. Come, ye rich, survey the stable. 

23. From the High Priest an armed band. 

24. Good Christians all with joyful mirth. 

25. Good Christian people, pray attend. 

26. Good Christian peopte, pray give ear. 

27. God's dear Son, without beginning. 

28. God rest you, merry gentlemen. 

29. Hark ! all around the welkin ring. 

30. Hark! hark! what news the angels bring. 

31. Hark ! how the heralds of the Lord, 

32. Hark ! the herald angels sing. 

33. Have you not heard and seen our Saviour's love. 

34. Here is a fountain of Christ's blood. 

35. Hosanna! to the Prince of Light. 

36. In Bethlehem City in Judea it was. 

37. In friendly love and unity. 

38. In God let all his Saints rejoice. 

39. Inspire me, Heav'n ! nor in me leave a thought. 

40. In the Reign of Great Caesar, the Emperor of Rome. 

41. Let all good Christian people here. 

42. Let all that are to mirth inclined. 

43. Let children proclaim their Saviour and king. 

44. Let mortals all rejoice. 

45. Let Christians all with one accord rejoice. 

46. Let Christians now in joyful mirth. 

47. Mortals, awake ! with angels join. 

48. My gift is small, a dozen of points. 

49. My master and dame I well perceive. 

50. Now when Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem bound. 

51. O fair, O fair Jerusalem ! when shall I come to thee ? 

52. O faithful Christians, as you love. 

53. O ! faithless, proud, and sinful man. 

54. O ! see man's Saviour in Bethlehem born. 

55. O 1 the Almighty Lord. 

56. Of Jesu's birth, lo ! angels sing. 



99 

57. On Christmas day in the morn. 

58. On Christmas night all Christians sing. 

59. One God there is of wisdom, glory, might. 

60. One night as slumbering I lay. 

61. Reader, pray do not think I am unkind. 

62. Rejoice and be merry, set sorrow aside. 

63. Rejoice now all good Christians. 

64. See how the blessed Babe on Mother's knee, 

65. Shepherds rejoice, lift up your eyes. 

66. Sinners, who now do at this time. 

67. Sweeter sounds than music knows. 

68. The faithless, proud, and sinful man. 

69. The first good joy our Lady had. 

70. The holly and the ivy, now are both well grown. 

71. The King of Glory sends his Son. 

72. The moon shines bright, and the stars give a light. 

73. The Shepherds amaz'd, the Saviour behold. 

74. This second Carol here I sing. 

75. This is the truth sent from above. 

76. Thus Angels sing, and thus sing we. 

77. Turn your eyes that are so fixed. 

78. Upon the five and twentieth of December. 

79. When bloody Herod reigned king. 
SO. When Christ the Saviour did appear. 

81. When Christ our Lord drew nigh. , 

82. When Jesus Christ had lived. 

83. When Jesus Christ our Lord. 

84. When righteous Joseph wedded was. 

85. When Zachariah was a priest. 

86. While shepherds watch'd their flocks by night. 

87. Within this rock, that rock is laid, 

88. Ye mortals all, of high and low degree. 

89. Ye young and ye gay. 

This Collection I have had little opportunity of increasing 
except when in the country I have heard an old woman singing 
an old Carol, and brought back the Carol in my pocket with less 
chance of its escape, than the tune in my head. 



100 




Christ tempted. 



The attachment of Carol buyers^ ex- 
tends even to the wood cuts by which 
they are surrounded. Some of these, on 
a sheet of Christmas Carols, in 1820, 
were so rude in execution, that I re- 
quested the publisher, Mr. T. Batche- 
lar, of 115, Long Alley, Moorfields, 
to sell me the original blocks. I was 
a little surprised by his telHng me that he 
was afraid it would be impossible to get 
any of the same kind cut again. When I 
proffered to get much better engraved, 
and give them to him in exchange for his 
old ones, he said, ' Yes, but better are not 
so good ; I can get better myself : now 
these are old favourites, and better cuts will 
not please my customers so well.' How- 
ever, by assuring him that artists could 
copy any thing, I obtained them. Those 
who are fond of specimens of all kinds 
of wood engraving, will be amused by 
the annexed impressions from these four 
blocks, produced in the metropolis of 



a Mr. Southey describing the fight ' upon the plain of Patay,' tells of one who 
fell, as having 

In his lord's castle dwelt, for many a year, 
A well-beloved servant : he could sing 
Carols for Shrove-tide, or for Candlemas, 
Songs for the Wassel, and when the Boar's head 
Crown'd with gay garlands, and with rosemary, 
Smoak'd on the Christmas board. 

Joan of Arc, b. x. 1. 466. 

These ditties which now exclusively enliven the industrious servant-maid, and 
the humble labourer, gladdened the festivity of royalty in ancient times. Henry 
VII., in the third year of his reign, kept his Christmas at Greenwich : on the 
twelfth night, after high mass, the king went to the hall and kept his estate 



101 



England in this advanced state of art. 
They almost defy rivalry with the earliest 
conceptions, and shew the prevailing taste 
in graphic illustration among those who 
in due season, as naturally buy Christmas 
Carols as they long for mince pies and eat 
plum-pudding. 

I recollect the sheet of Carols twice 
its present size, with more than double 
the number of cuts, and sold for a half- 
penny ; but alas ! ' every thing is chang- 
ed ;* the present half sheets are raised in 
price to a whole penny. 

1 must not omit to observe, that Mr. Bat- 
chelar was certainly sincere in the belief 
he expressed of his customers' attachment 
to his wood blocks. When he sold them 
to me, he expressly stipulated for a reser- 
vation of copyright in the designs; and 
he exercised it last year by publishing a 
sheet of Carols, adorned with fac-similes 
of the impressions which the reader is 
now looking upon. 

The inscriptions are placed beneath the 
cuts exactly as they stand in the original 
sheet. 




Christ brought before 
Pilate. 




Taken down from 
the Cross. 



at the table; in the middle sat the Dean, and those of the king's chapel, who 
immediately after the king's first course * sang a caralU — (LeUmd. Collect, vol. 
iv. p. 237.) — Granger innocently observes that * they that fill the highest and the 
lowest classes of human life, seem in many respects to be more nearly allied 
than even themselves imagine. A skilful anatomist would find little or no 
difference in dissecting the body of a king, and that of the meanest of his sub- 
jects ; and a judicious philosopher would discover a surprising conformity in 
discussing the nature and qualities of their minds.'— ^tog-. Hist. Engl, ed. 1804, 
vol. iv, p. 356. 

N 



102 

Tbe earliest collection of Christmas Carols supposed to have 
been published, is only known from the last leaf of a volume 
printed by Wynkyn de Worde, in the year 1521. This precious 
scrap was picked up by Tom Hearne ; Dr. Rawlinson, who pur- 
chased it at his decease in a volume of tracts, bequeathed it to the 
Bodleian library. There are two Carols upon it: one, ' a caroll 
of huntynge,' is re-printed in the last edition of Juliana Berners' 
Boke of St. Alban's ; the other, * a Caroll, bringing in the bore's 
head/ is in Mr. Dibdin's Ames, with a copy of it as it is now 
sung in Queen's College, Oxford, every Christmas day, ' to the 
common chaunt of the prose version of the Psalms in Cathedrals.' 
Dr. Bliss, of Oxford, also printed on a sheet for private distri- 
bution, a few copies of this and Ant. a Wood's version of 
it, with notices concerning the custom, from the handwritings 
of Wood and Dr. Rawlinson, in the Bodleian Library. Ritson, 
in his ill-tempered ' Observations on Warton's History of Eng- 
lish Poetry,' (1782, 4to. p. 37,) has a Christmas carol upon bring- 
ing up the boar's head, from an ancient MS. in his possession ; 
vv'holly different from Dr. Bliss's. The ' Bibliographical Mis- 
cellanies,' (Oxford, 1813, 4to.) contains seven Carols from a 
collection in one volume in the possession of Dr. Cotton, of 
Christ Church College, Oxford, ' inprynted at London, in the 
Powltry, by Richard Kele, dvvellyng at the longe shop vnder saynt 
Myldrede's Chyrche,' probably ' between 1546 and 1552 :' I 
had an opportunity of perusing this exceedingly curious volume 
which is supposed to be unique, and has since passed into the 
hands of Mr. Freeling. There are Carols among the Godly 
^' Spiritual Songs and Balates, in ' Scotish Poems of the six- 
teenth Century,' (1 801, 8vo.); and one by Dunbar, from the Ban- 
natyne MS. in ' Ancient Scottish Poems.' Others are in Mr. 
Ellis's edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities, with several useful 
notices. Warton's History of English Poetry contains much con- 
cerning old Carols. Mr. Douce, in his Illustrations of Shaks- 
peare, gives a Specimen of the carol sung by the shepherds on 
the birth of Christ in one of the Coventry Plays. There is a 
sheet of carols, headed thus : < Christus Natus Est: Christ 



103 

is born;''' with a wood-cut, 10 inches high, by 8| inches wide, re- 
presenting the stable at Bethlehem ; Christ in the crib, watched 
by the Virgin and Joseph ; shepherds kneeling; augels attending; a 
man playing on the bagpipes ; a woman, with a basket of fruit on 
her head ; a sheep bleating, and an ox lowing on the ground ; 
a raven croaking, and a crow cawing on the hay-rack ; a cock 
crowing above them ; and angels singing in the sky. The animals 
have labels from their mouths, bearing Latin inscriptions. Down 
the side of the wood-cut is the following account and explana- 
tion : ' A religious man inventing the conceits of both birds and 
beasts, drawn in the picture of our Saviour's birth, doth thus ex- 
press them : The cock croweth, Christus natm est, ^\yi\$l i^ 
born* The raven asked, Quando ? W^tW ? The cow replied, 
Hac node, €])i^ nigfjt. The ox cryeth out, Uhi'^ Ubi'^ 
W^tU ? W])tU ? The sheep bleated out, Bethlehem, %tt\)\t\)t\X[. 
Voice from heaven sounded, Gloria in Excelsis, ^lorp be On {jt^ib^* 
The custom of singing carols at Christmas prevails in Ireland, 
to the present time. In Scotland where no church feasts have 
been kept since the days of John Knox, the custom is unknown. 
In Wales it is still preserved to a greater extent, perhaps, than in 
England ; at a former period, the Welsh had carols adapted to 
most of the ecclesiastical festivals, and the four seasons of the 
year, but at this time they are limited to that of Christm;is. After 
the turn of midnight at Christmas eve, service is performed in 
the churches, followed by the singing of carols to the harp. 
Whilst the Christmas holidays continue, they are sung in like 
manner in the houses, and there are carols especially adapted to 
be sung at the doors of the houses by visitors before they enter. 
Lff;i/r Carolan,^ or the Book of Carols, contains sixty-six for 
Christmas, and five summer carols ; Blodeugerdd Cymriij^ or 
the Anthology of Wales, contains forty-eight Christmas carols. 



* London, Printed and Sold by J. Bradford, in Little Britain, the Corner 
House over against the Pump, 1701. Price One Penny. 
^ Shrewsbury, 4th edit. 1740. 12mo. 
« Shrewsbury, 1779, 8vo. 



104 

nine summer carols, three May carols, one winter carol, one 
nightingale carol, and a carol to Cupid. The following verse of 
a carol for Christmas is literally translated from the first mentioned 
volume. The poem was written by Hugh Morris, a celebrated 
song-writer during the commonwealth, and until the early part of 
the reign of William III/ 

^To a saint let us not pray, to a pope let us not kneel ; 
On Jesu let us depend, and let us discreetly watch 
To preserve our souls from Satan with his snares ; 
Let us not in a morning invoke any one else. 

With the succeeding translation of a Welsh Wassail song, the ob- 
server of manners will, perhaps, be pleased. In Welsh, the 
lines of each couplet, repeated inversely, still keep the same sense. 

A Carol for the Eve of St. Mary's Day. 

This is the season when, agreeably to custom, 

That it was an honour to send wassail ^ 

By the old people who were happy 

In their time, and loved pleasure ; 

And we are now purposing 

To be like them, every one merry ; 

Merry and foolish, youths are wont to be. 

Being reproached for squandering abroad, 

I know that every mirth will end 

Too soon of itself ; 

Before it is ended, here comes 

The wassail of Mary, for the sake of the time : 

N ^ place the maid immediately 

In the chair before us ; 



* Att edition of Hugh Morris's Works is now in the press. 
^ Dyma amser yr oedd arver 
Anrhydedd vod o anvon gwirod. 
« Here the master or mistress of the house was called on by name to officiate. 



105 

And let every body in the house be content that we 

May drink wassail to virginity, 

To remember the time, in faithfuhiess, 

When fair Mary was at the sacrifice, 

After the birth to her of a son, 

Who delivered every one, through his good will 

From their sins, without doubt. 

Should there be an inquiry who made the carol. 
He is a man whose trust is fully on God, 
That he shall go to heaven to the effulgent Mary, 
Towards filling the orders where she also is. 

Thomas Evans.* 

On the continent the custom of carolling at Christmas is al- 
most universal. During the last days of Advent, Calabrian min- 
strels enter Rome, and are to be seen in every street saluting the 
shrines of the Virgin mother with their wild music, under the 
traditional notion of charming her labour-pains on the approach- 
ing Christmas. Lady Morgan observed them frequently stopping 
at the shop of a carpenter. In reply to questions concerning 
this, the workmen who stood at the door said, that it was done 
out of respect to St. Joseph.' * I have an old print of this prac- 
tice. Two Calabrian shepherds are represented devoutly playing 
at Christmas in a street of Rome, before a stone shrine, con- 
taining a sculpture of the Infant Jesus in the Virgin's arms, 
lighted up by candles, with a relief under it of supplicating souls 
in purgatorial fire, inscribed ' Dite Ave Maria/ A young fe- 
male, with a rosary, is praying on her knees before the sculpture. 
The shepherds stand behind and blow the bagpipes and a clarionet. 

If one there be who has proceeded until now without tiring, 
he will know how much pleasantness there is in pursuits hke 
these. To him who inquires of what use they are, I answer, 
that I have found them agreeable recreations at leisure mo- 



a Lady Morgan's Italy, c. xxi. 



106 

ments. I love an old MS. and ' a ballad in print/ and I know 
no distance that I would not travel to obtain Autolycus's 

* 2Ba[laD Df a ^i^i) tl^at ajtpeared upon tl}e tna^t, on J©eti^ 
ntma^ t])t fmt^tntt of apcil, fortp tJ)Ou«;fanD fat5)om abobe 
main, anD ^ung tW haliab again.^t tfje l^arD j^eartj^ of maio^/ 

I can scarcely tell why collectors have almost overlooked Carols, 
as a class of popular poetry. To me they have been objects of in- 
terest from circumstances which occasionally determine the direc- 
tion of pursuit. The wood cuts round the annual sheets, and the 
melody of ' God rest you merry Gentlemen,^ delighted my child- 
hood ; and, 1 still listen with pleasure to the shivering carolist's 
evening chaunt towards the clean kitchen window decked with 
holly, the flaring fire showing the whitened hearth, and reflecting 
gleams of light from the surfaces of the dresser utensils. 

Since this sheet was at the printer's, Gilbert Davies, Esq. 
F. R. S. F. A. S. &c. has published eight ' Ancient Christmas 
Carols, with the tunes to which they were formerly sung in the 
West of England.' This is a laudable and successful efi'ort to 
rescue from oblivion some carol melodies, which in a few years 
will be no more heard. Mr. Davies says, that ' on Christmas- 
day these carols took the place of psalms in all the Churches, es- 
pecially at afternoon service, the whole congregation joining: 
and at the end it was usual for the Parish Clerk, to declare in a 
loud voice, his wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy new 
year.' A sentiment similar to that of the parish clerk's in the 
West of England, was expressed last year in a way that leaves little 
doubt of its former general adoption at the same season. Just 
before Christmas day, I was awakened in London at the dead of 
night, by the playing of the waits : on the conclusion of their so- 
lemn tunes, one of the performers exclaimed aloud, ' God bless 
you, my masters and mistresses, a merry Christmas to you, and a 
happy new year.' 



107 



IV. ENGRAVINGS OF APOCRYPHAL NEW 
TESTAMENT SUBJECTS. 



Pictures by the best masters, prints by the early engravers, woodcuts in 
early black letter and block-books, and illuminations of missals and monastic 
MSS. receive immediate elucidation on reference to the Apocryphal New 
Testament, and are without explanation from any other source. 

Jpoc. N, Test. Pref. 



1 H E following is a List of Prints in my own possession, founded 
on subjects in the Apocryphal New Testament. The passages to 
which they refer are inserted before the descriptions. Several of 
these engravings illustrate scenes in the preceding Mysteries. 

I. The Meeting of Joachim and Anne at the 
Golden Gate of Jerusalem. 

Mary, ii. — 1. The angel of the Lord stood by Joachim with a prodigioua 

light. 2. To whom being troubled at the appearance, the angel who 

had appeared to him endeavouring to compose him said ; 9. Anna 

your wife shall bring you a daughter, and you shall call her name 

Mary. ^10. She shall according to your vow be devoted to the Lord 

from her infancy, and be filled with the Holy Ghost from her mother's 
womb. 13. And this shall be a sign to you of the things which I de- 
clare, namely, when you come to the golden gate of Jerusalem^ you shall 
there meet your wife Anna. 

iii. — 1. Afterwards the angel appeared to Anna his wife, saying, 2. A 

daughter shall be born unto you? &c. 6. Arise, therefore, and go up to 

Jerusalem, and when you shall come to that which is called the golden gate, 
as a sign of what I liave told you, ijou shall meet your husband, for whose 
safety you have been so much concerned. 

Joachim and Anne meeting at the gate, and embracing. Men 
conversing and looking on. An engraving on wood by Albert 
Durer — half sheet. 



108 
II. The Birth of the Virgin Mary. 

Mary, iii. — 11. ff So Anna conceived and brought forth a daughter. 
Protevangelion. — 6. And when nine months were fulfilled to Anna, she 

brought forth, and said to the midwife. What have I brought forth? * 

7. And she told her, a girl. 

1. In the back-ground Anne in bed ; an angel above, censing; 
two women administering drink and food to her : in the foreground 
a woman seated, washing the infant ; nine other women in the 
room, drinking and talking with a child. An engraving on wood, 
by Albert Durer — half sheet. 

2. Anne in bed waited on by a female ; her husband Joachim 
seated by the bedside; God as an old man in the clouds, with 
the world in his hand, attended by angels ; women dressing the 
infant, preparing the cradle, airing linen, &c. Engraved after 
JB. Sprariger, 1584 — large upright sheet. 

III. The Virgin Mary miraculously ascending 
THE Steps of the Temple. 

Maryy iv. — l. And when three years were expired, and the time of her wean- 
ing complete, they brought the Virgin to the temple with their offerings. 

4. And they put her upon one of the stairs. 6. In the meantime 

the Virj'in of the Lord in such a manner went up all the stairs one after 
another, without the help of any one to lead her or lift her, that any 
one would have judged from hence that she was of perfect age. 

Mar^ ascending the steps of the temple ; the priests waiting at 
the door above to receive her ; Joachim and Anna in the crowd 
below ; Receivers of the offerings counting money, &c. An en- 
graving on wood; by Albert Durer — half sheet. 

IV. Joseph's miraculous budded Rod. 

Mary, v.— 16. Then according to this prophecy the high-priest appointed 
that all men of the house and family of David who were marriageable, 

and not married, should bring their several rods to the altar. 17. And 

oat of whatsoever person's rod after it was brought, a flower should bud forth, 
and on the top of it the Spirit of the Lord should sit in the appearance of a 
dove, lie should be the man to whom the Virgin should be given and be be- 
trothed. 



109 

Protevangelion, viii. — 11. Atid behold a dove proceeded out of the rod, and flew 
upon the head of Joseph.— r^— 12. And the high-priest said, Joseph, Thou 
art the person chosen to take the virgin of the Lord. 

1. An interior — the birth-place of Christ ; Joseph with his 
budded rod ; offerings being presented, &c. Engraved by Jac. 
Frey, after Sebast. Conca — large sheet. 

2. Jesus in the Virgin's lap holding Joseph's budded rod in 
both hands ; the Virgin attracting his attention from it by show- 
ing him a flower. Engraved by Joseph JusteVy after Leonardi 
da F««C2— folio. 

3. Joseph seated mth his budded rod in his lap, reading a 
scroll. Engraved by A. A. Morel , after Wicar — quarto. 

4. Joseph with his budded rod in his right hand, holding the 
child on his left arm. An oval engraving, octavo size, with square 
border for illumination, published at Paris by Gautier, 1818. 

V. Christ's Birth in a Cave* 

Protevangelionf xiv. — 10. Then a bright cloud overshadowed the cave, 
1 Infancy, i. — 10. And behold it was aW filled with lights greater than the lights 
of lamps and candles, and greater than the light of the sun itself. 

The birth of Christ in the cave, a great light from the infant ; 
Angels adoring him, others in a cloud above praying and prais- 
ing. Engraved by Wierix — small folio. 

VI. Fall of the Idol in Egypt. 

1 Infancy, iv. — 6. And now he drew near to a great city in which there was 

an idol. 13. And at the same instant the idol fell down, and at his fall 

all the inhabitants of Egypt, besides others, ran together. 

1. The flight into Egypt, an idol falling from a bracket at- 
tached to a tree. Engraved by John Sadler, after M. De Fos — 
small folio. 

2. The same subject. Engraved by A. Wierix — small 12mo. 

VII. Flight of the Robbers. 

1 Infancy, v.— 3. They went therefore hence to the secret place of robbers 
who robbed travellers, as they pass by, of their carriages and their 

o 



110 

clothes, and carry them away bound. 4. These thieves upon their 

coming heard a great noise, such as the noise of a king with a great army, 
and many horse, and the trumpets sounding, at his departure from his 
own city ; at which they were so affrighted, as to leave all their booty 6e- 
hind them, and jitj away in haste. 

The arrival of the Holy Family, and the flight of the robbers. 
An etching by Castiglione. 

VIII. The Virgin Mary washing Christ's Clothes. 

1 Infancy, viii. — 9. ^ Hence they went to that sycamore tree which is now 

called Matarea. 10. And in Matarea the Lord Jesus caused a well to 

spring forth in which St, Mary washed his coat. 11. And a balsam is 

produced (or grows) in that country, from the sweat which ran down 
there from the Lord Jesus. 

1. Mary on her knees washing linen at a spring-head, and 
Christ taking it to Joseph, who hands it to two angels in a tree to 
hang up to dry. Engraved by Vallet, from Albano — a large 
sheet. 

2. Another by Benoist, from the same picture ; rather smaller. 

3. An Orleans Gallery print by Couche, from the same. 

IX. Joseph carpentering — Christ assisting him. 

1 Infancy, xvi. — And Joseph, wheresoever he went into the city, took the 
Lord Jesus with him where he was sent for to make gates, or milk pails, 
or sieves or boxes. 

1. The infant in the cradle, Mary spinning from a distaff; 
full grown angels attending them. Joseph working with his 
hatchet at a bench ; little angels raking together and picking up 
his chips, and putting them in a basket. An engraving on wood, 
by Albert Durer, 

2. Joseph working at a bench for the building of a church or 
monastery ; an archangel directing the work ; angels carrying the 
boards, and flying up to the steeple with large beams ; the Virgin 
seated, rolling a swathe on a table with the child in her arms ; an 
angel airing a napkin at the fire, others in the clouds with music- 
books, singing. Engraved by J. Sadler, after Fred. Sustris-^ 
small folio, breadthways. 



Ill 

3. The same subject ; reversed, by R. Sadler. 

4. Tbe Virgin seated with the child sleeping in her arms ; an 
angel making up his bed in the cradle ; another airing his napkin 
at the fire-place : Joseph leaning over ihe back of her chair, with 
a chisel in his right, and a mallet in his left hand. Engraved by 
Vander Does, after Guellinus — folio. 

5. Joseph at his carpenter's bench chiseUing wood; Christ 
standing at the end holding a lamp for him to see by ; the Virgin 
behind. Engraved by Coeiemans, after Bigot — quarto. 

6. Joseph at the work-bench making a chalk-line on a board ; 
Christ holding one end of the line, and Joseph the other ; the 
Virgin seated with work in her lap ; Joseph's budded rod in a 
vase. A large engraving by J. Pesne, after An. Caracci. 

7. Joseph planeing in a room ; the Virging sewing ; Christ 
sweeping the shavings together with a broom. A small oval en- 
gravings with Latin letter-press beneath, from a foreign devo- 
tional hook. 

8. ^ Jesu Christi Dei Domini Salvatouis nri In- 
PANTiA.' This is a set of small plates beautifully engraved by 
Jerome Wierix: among them are the following subjects: 1. Jo- 
seph in a room driving a wooden pin into the doorsill ; Christ 
sweeping up chips, and angels carrying them to Mary, who is at 
the fire cooking in a skillet. 2. Joseph and an angel driving 
nails into the frame-work of a building ; Christ with a large au- 
gur boring a hole in a plank ; Mary reeling thread. 3. Joseph 
chipping a log ; Christ and angels picking up the chips ; Mary 
reeling thread. 4. Joseph finishing the roof of a house ; Christ 
carrying a plank up a ladder ; Mary combing flax. 5. Joseph 
building a boat; Christ caulking it, assisted by angels; Mary 
knitting. 6. Joseph driving posts into the ground ; Christ nail- 
ing the rails, attended by angels. 7. Joseph and Christ sawing 
across the trusk of a tree on the ground ; an angel sitting on 
each end to steady it ; Mary at a spinning wheel. B. Joseph 
and Christ sawing into planks a large beam, wbich is elevated on 
a scaffold; Christ holding the saw, on. the beam above, as the 



112 

topsman ; Joseph pulling below ; angels lifting wood, avid Mary 
spinning. 

A Volume that I have, entitled the ' ^Oecfe ban gjJje^U^ 
(eben/* contains Apoc. N. Test, subjects, with engravings on 
wood, coloured. 1. A cut that occupies the whole of page 14, 
at the top, in one corner, represents Issachar reproaching Joachim 
for being without issue, and returning him his offerings ; in the other 
corner the angel comforts Joachim, and appoints him to meet his 
wife Anne at the Golden Gate ; below, the angel consoles Anne, 
and tells her that she shall be no longer barren ; in the other lower 
corner appears the gate, with Joachim and Anne embracing. Or. 
On page 15, is a cut of the Virgin at three years old, walking up the 
fifteen steps of the temple to the astonishment of the priests. 3. A 
cut on page 16, represents the men of the house of David with 
rods, standing beside the altar in the temple ; the priest before it 
talking to Joseph, whose rod has blossomed, with the Holy Ghost 
as a dove sitting upon its top. 4. A cut of the flight into 
Egypt, is on page 43, with two idols falling from their pillars be- 
fore Christ and the Virgin. 

Having concluded a brief notice of some of this class of prints 
in my possession, the following that I recollect to have seen 
may be added : viz. 1 . The Nativity of Christ, with the two 
midwives present ; engraved by Ghisi — very large. 2. The 
marriage of Joseph and Mary, with Joseph's rod in flowery 
and the dove ; after a picture by Parmegiano. — S. The same 
eubject with Joseph's rod buddings and the Holy Ghost coming 
down as the dove, after 'N. Poussin, — 4. The same subject, Jo- 
seph's rod buddingy &,c. Jordano. — ^There are prints of Anne 
and Joachim her husband, in the English and foreign editions of 
the Golden Legend. Among the Harleian MSS. an inventory 
of furniture at the old royal palace of Greenwich, in the reign of 
Henry VIII. contains ' a tablet of our Lady and ^t. Anne/ 

Gough in his account of the splendid Bedford Missal, men- 

^ Folio, Breda, 1495. 



113 

^ns several of its sumptuous drawings that are clearly Apoc. N, 
Test, subjects ; in particular, ' the angel announces to St. Anne, 
the nativity of our Lady, and that she should bear the mother of 
our Saviour.'-^ 2. St. Anne and Joachim present the Virgin 
Mary in the temple. 3. A representation of the idols falling in 
the flight into Egypt.^ 4. Another of the same subject.*" Per- 
haps Mr. Gough's account of a ^ man with a lily sceptre pursued 
by men with staves,* '' may be found to be Joseph with his budded 
rod, and the men of the house of David with their rods. 

It would weary the reader to enumerate similar illustrations of 
these apocryphal subjects. I shall therefore conclude by observing 
that in the Salisbury Missal of 1534, there is a prayer with a pre- 
face, stating that Pope Alexander VI. granted to all that said it 
devoutly in the worship of St. Anne, and our Lady and her son, 
ten thousand years of pardon for deadly sins, and twenty years 
for venial sins, ' totiens quotiens ;' also another prayer to be said 
before the image of Saint Anna, Maria, and Jesus, ' of the 
whyche Raymund the cardinall and legate hath granted a C days 
of pardon, toties quotiens.' Before these prayers is a whole 
length wood-cut portrait of Anne, with an emblazonment, on the 
front of her figure, of the Virgin Mary, with the child Jesus in 
her arms. In the back-ground the angel is appearing to Joachim, 
and Anne is meeting him at the Golden Gate. On the next 
page there is a smaller cut of Anne teaching the Virgin to read. 
Anne is represented in this way in Les Ceremonies de la St. 
Messe. The painters usually so occupy her.^ 

a Account of the Bedford Missal, 1794, 4to. p. 78. ^ Ibid. p. 26. 

*= Ibid. p. 38. '^ Ibid. p. 28. 

«= Ribadeneira in his Lives of the Saints, (fol. 1730, vol. ii. p. 59.) says, * We 
cannot say any thing greater for the glory of St. Anme, than to call her the 
mother of the mother of God, and grandmother of Jesus Christ. For it can- 
not be questioned, but that the same bountiful Lord hath furnished, beautified, 
and ennobled her purest soul with all those treasures of virtues it was fitting 
she should be enriched and adorned with, who was to be the grandmother of 
the Son of God.' The same author thus apostrophises Joachim her husbando 
* O, happy man, that was made worthy to give to God the Father, a most 
pure and holy daughter ; to God the Son, an incomparable mother; to God 



114 

the Holy Ghost, a most chaste spouse, and the rich cabluet of the holy Trinity .- 
A tract licensed by the Doctors in Divinity of the Faculty of Paris, in 1643, 
' in order to maintain devotion to her,' is entitled, ' The Prerogatives of St. Anne, 
Mother of the Mother of God.' The Doctors in setting forth the sanctity of 
Anne, supposes that an eagle, preparing to make a nest, flies about to choose 
a tree surpassing all others in height and beauty, and makes choice of the 
strongest branch, and nearest heaven. Imagine, now, says the author, that 
God is this eagle, vi'ho running over with his eyes, all the women who were to 
be, from the first to the last, perceived not any one so worthy to receive the 
glorious virgin who was to be the little nest of the heavenly eaglet who is the 
word incarnate, as St. Anne, in whom he rested himself as in the tree of Para- 
dise; — so that God gave to her merits the glorious advantage of conceiving in 
her bowels a daughter, who merited the exalted dignity of becoming the mo- 
ther of God, and efFectiag the re-establishment of the universe. Consequently 
in our need we must address ourselves by St. Anne to the Virgin, and by the 
Virgin to Jesus Christ, and by Jesus Christ to God his Father. By the imita- 
tion of her virtues we revere her sanctity, and God seeing that we have no 
present to approach his throne, his grandmother desires from the souls who 
bear her name, that their hearts be alwayvS replenished with grace. 

In the London Gazette, from Sept. 8 to Sept. 11, 1722, is the following entry : 
— ' Hanover, Sept. 7th, N. S. This day died in the 89th year of his age, M. 
Gerard Molan, Abbot of Lockumb, Primate of the States of this Dutchy, Di- 
rector of the churches and clergy in the Electorate, Head of his Majesty's 
ecclesiastical court, and council there, and a member of the English Society 
for the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts. Notwithstanding,' says the 
Gazette, ' his great age, he enjoyed till his last sickness a firm health, with a 
vigour of body and mind equal to his laborious employments. His great abilities, 
his prudence, integrity, and the indefatigable application, he shewed, in discharg- 
ing the trust reposed in him, gained him the special favour of his sovereign, 
the love of those under his care, and the esteem of all that knew him. His 
profound learning, exemplary piety, and truly Christian moderation rendered 
him the ornament of the German Evangelick Clergy, so that his loss is univer- 
sally lamented.' 

One of the trusts reposed in the Primate Molan, was that of * Keeper of a 
noble collection of Relics;' and one of his laborious employments^ the drawing 
up of a Catalogue Raisonn^e in Latin of his precious charge. I have in my 
possession an English translation of this catalogue by a traveller, to whom he 
presented a Latin copy, and shewed the relics. The MS. contains an account 
of Two Relics of St. Anne, Mother of the most glorious Virgin Mary; likewise a 
piece of her coat; also another piece of her coat ; and furthermore a great piece of her 
coat. In the same ' noble collection,' are two relics of St. Clement, two of 
St. Barnabas, and three of St. Hermas, whose writings are contained in 
the Apoc. N. Test. Their relics are accompanied by others of each of the 
twelve Apostles; also three relics of St. John the Baptist, and one of his teeth ; 
two reUcs of St. Thomas a Becket ; six relics of the eleven thousand Virgins, 



115 

with three notable hones, and three great bones belonging to them ; the shoul- 
der-blade of St. George the Martyr, a piece of his arm, one of his ribs, and a 
piece of his back ; an arm of St. Lawrence ; ' a thumb of St. Mark, from his 
body at Venice, which wants it ;' the claws of a crab belonging to St. Peter ; 
two pieces of Aaron's red ; an entire arm of St. Bartholomew; an arm of St. 
Mary Magdalen, and a piece of her head ; some oil from the breast of the Vir- 
gin ; some of her hair; several other relics of her, and a piece of her tombstone ; 
two pieces of the table at which Christ supped ; some of the ointment he was 
anointed with ; three pieces of the pillar at which he was scourged ; two thorns 
from his crown; nine pieces of his cross; some of his blood ; and his handker- 
chief. These relics of St. Anne, and the rest I have mentioned, with a multi- 
tude of others, are the ancestral property of His present Majesty king George 
the Fourth. The MS. says, that * this is most certain, that all travellers, that 
have been in all parts of the world, and come to Hanover and seen these relics, 
with one voice confess, that so vast a treasure of most valuable relics, so finely 
adorned, is hardly to be seen, or indeed not at all to be seen together in any 
one place whatever — and they are now preserved in the Electoral Chapel, and 
readily and vdllingly shewn to all that desire to see them.' 

Joachim, on his festival in the old Roman Miesal, is thus addressed, * O 
Joachim, husband of St. Anne, and father of the Blessed Virgin, from hence 
bestow saving help on thy servants,' The last of some Latin verses in the same 
service is thus translated by Bp. Patrick, (Devot. of Rom. Ch. p. 396.) 

And now thou'rt placed among the blest so high, 
Thou canst do every thing thou art inclined to ; 

Thy nephew, Jesus, sure will not deny. 

Much less thy daughter, wliat thou hast a mind to. 

Anne, his wife, was also supplicated for the remission of sin, and honoured 
with hymns, and other devotions. She is spoken of by English writers with 
great respect. In ' the mw Notborune mayde upo^ the passio' of cryste,' (im- 
prynted at London by John Skot, ISrao. ;) a rare poem, occasioned by the 
old ballad of the Not-browne Mayde, in Arnold's Chronicle, 1521, (of which 
latter. Prior's JSutbrown Maid, is an altered version,) Anne is honoured, by 
the author making Christ himself mention her, in answer to one of Mary's 
expostulations in behalf of mankind : 

Lo, thus, good mayde, 
The daughter of Saynt Anne, 
Man hate exylede 
From hyni your cliylde, 
Ryght as a banysshed man. 

That Anne was in good estimation may be well imagined from there being in 
London, four churches dedicated to her, besides upwards of thirty thoroughfares 
in the metropolis called by her name. In the Calendar to the Catholic Church 



116 

Service, {Laity's Directory, 1822,) her birth-day, the 26th of July, is marked 
as a high festival of devotion. The Wedding-Ring of Joachim and Anne has 
also had its due share of respect, for it was kept by the nuns of St. Anne at 
Rome, and worked miracles. It wa^ stolen during the sacking of that city 
under the pontificate of Clement VII., but was wonderfully brought back 
and laid upon a stone by a crow. 

An account of the honours to the Virgin Mary, would exceed the limits 
of this volume. Some notion of it may be formed from the fact, that upwards 
of three thousand different engravings of her were in the Collection of Prints, 
made by the Abbe MaroUes. The miracles she is recorded to have worked 
are almost innumerable. ' At one time they make her come down from 
heaven, to support an arch thief at the gaUows, who was hanged for his ro- 
gueries, but was withal a great devotee of her's ; at another, she comes to 
darn Thomas of Canterbury's coat, which happened to be torn upon the shoul- 
ders; then she is at the pains of wiping the sweat from the faces of the Monks 
of Clairvaux, while they are at work ; at another time she discharges the duty of 
a ceitain abbess who was rambling up and down the country with a monk who 
had debauched her ; she sings matins for a monk who had asked her to suppjy 
his place ; and they even make her come down to let a young fellow blood.' — 
{Conform, bet, Anc. and Mod. Cerern. p. 144.) The veneration in which she is 
held at this day may be gathered from a perusal of ' The Devotion and Office of 
the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, with its nature, origin, progress, S^c, in- 
cluding the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary,' ( 1 1 th edit. 
Keating and Co., 1816, 18mo.). 

Joseph the husband of Mary is also highly distinguished by worship ap- 
pointed to him. This appears from a recent devotional work, entitled, ' Re- 
flections on the prerogatives, power, and protection of St. Joseph, spouse of the 
Blessed Virgin Mary, with several devotions to the said most glorious Patriarch.' 
(Keating, 1812, 18mo.) Worship to Joseph was first assigned about 1370, in 
the reign of Pope Gregory XI. when a chapel being consecrated to St, Joseph 
in the cathedral of Avignon, the pope placed his coat of arras about it ih 
large escutcheons of stone. He increased the revenues of the canons, and 
ordained that the confraternity of Bachelors and sodality of Virgins belong- 
ing to it, in the procession on his festival, should carry in their hands posies 
of flowers emblematical of the fragrance of his virtues. ' In our age,' says 
the author, * devotion to him is universal throughout the habitable world : 
but why, says the modern critic, why were the glorious merits of St. Joseph so 
long concealed ? fVhy not generally made known to Christians before the 
fourteenth century ?' The author answers that * true believers are to tremble at 
whys and wherefores in divine government— it is unpardonable presumption of 
enter into the Omnipotent's hidden secrets, and damnable curiosity to dive 
into his secret decrees.' He observes that he cannot forbear remarking how 
unjust the common pencils are to St. Joseph, by representing him as to age 
and features, not becoming the foster-father of Jesus, and the spouse of Mary ; 
he says that in all probability the Son ojf God would not provide a husband to 



117 

liis beloved mother, who had the least personal defect; and that although he 
wjight be forty when the virgin was fourteen, yet he ought not to be so exposed 
as leaning on a staff, and so decrepit as to be almost useless, when he was vigor- 
ous and able to work thirty years in serving the sacred family both at home and 
abroad. He adds, that St. Bernard thiuks St. Joseph was the likeness of Mary, 
and that the learned Gerson affirms that the face of Jesus resembled the face 
of Joseph ; and he remarks that, as ' It would be reviving the blasphemous 
heresy of stigmatized Cerinthus to assert, that Jesus was by nature the real 
son of Joseph, yet he must be looked on as his legitimate parent, and 
entitled in all things to the right of paternity except that of generation, 
which the eternal Father supplied, by infusing into the husband of Mary, a 
paternal love for her son Jesus. A child lawfully conceived in matrimony, 
may strictly call the husband father, which title the Holy Ghost honours St. 
Joseph with, by the mouth of the immaculate Virgin: your father and I have 
sought you sorrowing. (St. Luke, ii. 48.) Children reputed by common fame to 
belong to such a parent, or those who are adopted, have a right to inherit titles 
and patrimonies ; much more Jesus who was born of Mary, Joseph's wife ; for 
according to the approved axiom of the law, whatever grows in, or is built upon 
another's soil, belongs to the owner thereof.' The work has many accounts of 
miracles performed by Joseph ; the following may be quoted as an example — 
* It is a matter of fact, that a person of quality having lost all his children by 
witchcraft a few days after their birth, was counselled by one who had too 
great an insight into that black and diabolical art, to name his next son Jo- 
seph ; it was done, and the cliild lived to inherit his father's estate and honour.' 
There are also in this book, directions for choosing St. Joseph as a patron, with 
his office, litany, a hymn in his honour, his beads, seven prayers in honour of 
his seven dolours and seven joys, and other exercises. A prelude to one of 
the meditations is in these words: * Imagine yourselves to be in the temple of 
Jerusalem when the high-priest gave to Joseph the immaculate Virgin Mary. 
How the patriarch espoused her, by putting a ring upon her finger, with other 
ceremonies according to the written law, in token that he made her partaker 
of all his goods, and took her under his protection,' 

The fVedding-Ring of Mary and Joseph was of onyx or amethyst, 
wherein was discerned a representation of the flowers that budded on his rod. 
It was discovered in the year 996, in this way. Judith, the wife of Hugo, Mar- 
quess of Etruria, being a great lover of jewels, employed one Ranerius, a skilful 
jeweller and lapidary of Clusiilm, to go to Rome to make purchases for her. 
There he formed an intimacy with a jeweller from Jerusalem, who, when Ra- 
nerius was about to return home, professed great atfection for him, and offered 
him a ring as a pledge of friendship. Ranerius looking upon it as of little value, 
declined it with a slight compliment ; but the jeweller from the Holy Land 
bade him not contemn it, for it was the wedding-ring of Joseph and the blessed 
Virgin, and made him take it with an especial charge that it should not fall 
into the hands of a wicked person. Ranerius, still careless of what he said, 
threw it into a little chest with articles of inferior value, where it remained 

P 



118 

tintil his forgetfulness cost him dear: for when his only son was ten years old, 
(the number of years that his father disregarded the Virgin's ring), the boy died 
and was carried to his burial. But, behold, as the hearse went forward, on a 
sudden the dead child rose from the coffin, ordered the bearers to stop, and 
calling to his father, told him, that by favour of the blessed Virgin he was come 
from heaven to tell him that as he had contemned religion by concealing her 
most holy ring in a common heap, he must immediately send for it, and publicly 
produce it, that it might be openly venerated. The chest being bronght and 
delivered into the son's hand, he presently found the ring, although he had 
never seen it before ; then most reverently kissing it, and showing it to the 
spectators, they religiously adored it during the joyful pealing of the bells 
which rung of their own accord ; whereupon, ordering himself to be carried to 
the place where he desired to be buried, he delivered the ring to the curate of 
the parish, and then laying himself down in the coffin, he was interred.— r 
This ring wrought many miracles: ivory ones touched with it worn by wo- 
men in difficult labour relieved them ; an impression of it in wax, applied to 
the hip, removed the sciatica ; it cured diseases of the eyes, reconciled married 
people that quarrelled, and drove out devils. Five centuries afterwards, in 1473, 
the church of Musthiola, where it effected these wonders, becoming ruinous, the 
ring was deposited with a religious community of the Franciscans at Clusinm. 
One of the brethren of the order named Wintherus, a crafty German, and very 
wicked, having obtained from the magistrates an appointment to shew the 
ring, on a certain occasion after exhibiting it at the end of his sermon stooped 
down, as if he was putting it into the place provided for it, but instead of doing 
so he slipped it up his sleeve,and privily conveyed himself and the ring from the 
city across the water. All was well so far, but when he got into a neighbouring, 
field it suddenly became dark, so that not knowing which way to go, but well 
knowing what was the matter, he hung the ring on a tree, and falling on the 
ground penitently confessed his sin to it, and promised to return to Clusinm if 
it would dispel the darkness. On taking it down it emitted a great light which 
he took advantage of to travel to Perusia, where he sojourned with the Augus- 
tan friars till he determined on making another eflfort to carry it into Germany. 
He was again hindered by the darkness returning. It infested him and the whole 
city for twenty days. Still he resolved not to return to Clusium, but told his 
story in great confidence to his landlord, one Lucas Jordanus, who with great 
cunning represented to him his danger from the Clusiuns, and the benefits he 
would receive from the Perusians if he bestowed the ring on tliat city, Win- 
therus followed his advice. As soon as the ring was shown to the people the 
darkness disappeared, and Wintherus was well provided for in the house of 
the magistrate. Meanwhile the bishop of Clusium coming to Perusia, endea- 
voured in vain to regain the relic. The city of Sena sent an ambassador to 
assist the claim of the Clusiuns ; he was entertained by the Perusians 
with great respect, but they informed him that having used no sacrilegious 
arts to obtain the blessed Virgin's ring, they respected her too much to restore 
it to its owners ; that they received it within their walls with as much respect 



119 

as they would do the Ark of the Covenant, and would defend their holy prize 
by force of arms. The bereaved Clusiuns laid tlie case before Pope Sixtus 
IV., and the Perusians did the same. Wintheriis was ordered by the Pope 
on the importunity of the Clusiuns, into closer confinement ; but as the heat 
abated he passed a merry life in Perusia, and at his death the Franciscans 
and the canons of St. Lawrence disputed for the possession of his body. This 
honour was in the end obtained by the latter, in whose chapel he was buried 
before an altar dedicated to St. Joseph and the Virgin ; and a monument was 
erected by the Perusians to the ring-stcaler's memory, with an inscription 
which acknowledged that the receivers were as much indebted to liim for it as 
if it had been his own property and he had offered it of his own accord. In the 
pontificate of Innocent III. A. D. 1486, the arbitrament of the dispute was left 
to Cardinal Piccolominaeus, who adjudged the relic to Perusia. The important 
decision was celebrated in that city by every imaginable expression of joy, and 
for the greater honour of the sacred ring a chapel was built for it in the church 
of St. Lawrence, with an inscription, informing the reader that tliere the untouch- 
ed mother, the queen of heaven, and her spouse, were worshipped ; that there in 
the sanctuary of her wedding ring, she lent a gracious ear to all prayers; and, 
that he that gave the ring (Wintherus), defended it by his protection. The pencil 
was called in to grace the more substantial labours of the architect. A curious 
picture represented the high-priest in the temple of Jerusalem, taking Joseph 
and Mary by their hands to espouse them witli the venerated ring: one side of 
the solemnity was graced by a band of virgins, the cojr.panions of Mary during 
her education ; the other side was occupied by a company of young men, 
Joseph's kinsmen of the house of David, holding their withered rods. The 
imagination of the artist employed one of these in breaking his own rod across 
his knee, as envious of Joseph's, which by its miraculous budding, had ended 
the hopes of all who by the proclamation had become candidates for her hand. 
In addition to this an altar was raised and dedicated to St. Joseph ; his statue 
was placed at its side ; his birth-day was kept with great pomp j a society of 
seculars called his Fraternity was instituted to serve in the chapel jointly with 
the clergy of St. Lawrence ; and on the joint festival of the Virgin and her 
spouse, the splendid solemnity was heightened by the solemn exhibition of their 
ring, and by the picture of their miraculous nuptials being uncovered to the 
eager gaze of the adoring multitude.— jB;>. Patrick's Devot. of Rom. Ch. p. 46. 

The miracles of the wedding ring of Joseph and Mary were trifling in com- 
parison to its miraculous powers of multiplying itself. It existed in different 
churches of Europe at the same time, and, each ring being as genuine as the 
other, each was paid the same honours by the devout, 



1?0 



V. THE DESCENT INTO HELL. 



* Mr. Warton, who smiles at the idea of their having anciently committed to 
the blacksmiths the handling of the Purification, an old play so called, would 
have had still greater reason, could he have assigned vi^ith truth to the company 
of taylors the Descent into HellJ 

Rev. John Brand, Hist. Newcastle^ v. ii. p. 370. n* 



1 HE Coventry Mystery of Christ's Descent into Hell, con- 
sists of only six verses ;' in one of which Christ expresses his de- 
termination to release the souls * from the cindery cell.' Such 
brevity was occasioned, perhaps, by the subject being very liack- 
nied. But the Chester Mystery of the same subject"" is a tedious 
paraphrase of circumstances in the Gospel of Nicodemus ; *" to 
which is added in one of the copies '^ by way of epilogue, the lamen- 
tation of a cheating Chester alewife, on being compelled to take up 
her abode with the devils ; one of whom she endeavours to wheedle 
by calling him her ' sweet Mr. Sir Sathanas/ from whom she re- 
ceives the compliment of being called his * dear darling,' 

In strictness, the prints that I have, which illustrate this event, 
should have been described with the other engravings from Apo- 
cryphal New Testament story, but it seemed better to connect 
them with other particulars on the same subject ; and accord- 



* Cotton MS. Pageant xxxiii. ^ Harl. MS. 2124. 

<= Apoc. N. Test. Nicodemus, xiii. 3. to xx. 14. — The Gospel of Nicodemus in 
Anglo-Saxon, by iElfric Abbot, of St. Albans, in the year 950, with fragments 
of the Old Testament in the same language, was published by Dr. Hickes at 
Oxford, in 169S.— Lewis's Hist, of Transl. of the BibUj p. 8. 

d Harl. MS. 2013. 



iugly they succeed the following extracts from the Apocryphal 
Gospel on which they are founded. 

Nicodemus, xii. — 3. In the depth of hell in the blackness of darkness, on a 
sudden there appeared the colour of the sua like gold, and a substantial 
purple coloured light, enlightening the place. 

XV. — 1. While all the vsaints of hell were rejoicing, behold Satan the prince 
and captain of death, said to the prince of hell. 2. Prepare to re- 
ceive Jesus of Nazareth himself, who boasted that he was the Son of 
God, and yet was a man afraid of death, and said my soul is sorrowful 
even to death. 

xvi. — 19. The mighty Lord appeared in the form of a man. 20. And 

with his invincible power visited those who sat in the deep darkness by 
iniquity, and the shadow of death by sin. 

xvii. — 13. Then the king of glory, trampling npon death, seized the prince 
of hell, deprived him of all his power, 

xix. — It. And taking hold of Adam by his right hand, he ascended from 
hell, and all the saints of God followed him. 

Engravings. 

1. A landscape with a view of the earth beneath, containing a 
semi-section of hell, which is a globe divided into four parts : 1. 
The devil sitting on the body of Judas in the centre, surrounded 
by a body of fire containing the damned in torment. 2. The 
compartment surrounding the centre is the flame of purgatory, 
with its inhabitants. 3. The next circle is the limbo of infants 
whose heat seems to be less fierce. 4. The outer circle is the 
limbo of the Fathers to which Christ has penetrated from his 
grave, with a banner surrounded by a light cloud filled with an- 
gels. Engraved by Ant. WieriXj after B. Pass — small folio. 

2. Christ within the porch of hell bearing a banner in his left 
band ; Adam who holds the cross of wood, with Eve and a crowd 
of others are behind him ; he is stooping down to receive persons 
who are grasping his right hand from a dark entrance ; a furious 
devil is striking at him with the end of a pointed staff, from a square 
hole above ; hell-gates lie broken on the ground, while a demon 
flying in the air blows a horn. A fine engraving on wood by ^Z- 
hert Durer, 1510 — small folio. 

3. The same subject varied a little. An engraving on copper 
by A. Durer — small square quarto. 



122 

4. The same subject further varied. Engraved by A^ Durer, 
1512, duodecimo. 

5. The same subject more varied. Engraved by Jerome 
Wierix — small. 

6. Christ bursting hell gates ; a devil throwing stones at him 
from the battlement — a very early engraving on wood, before the 
time of Wolgemuth. 

7. A devil holding up the broken gate with his left arm, and 
beating back Adam and Eve with a large splinter of wood in his 
right hand to prevent their escape. Engraved by Martin Schoen. 

The ' Pilgremage of the sowle,' a spiritual romance with beau- 
ties that deliglued our forefathers, w'as printed by Caxton, in 1483. 
I have a MS. in French from which Caxton's work is translated, 
with fifty-six coloured drawings interspersed by the amanuensis, 
three of which are entire sections of the subterranean hell, di- 
vided into compartments, conformably to the print by Wierix. 
This arrangement of hell is attributed to Cardinal Bellarmine, 
but the Cardinal only repeated w^hat had been previously desr 
cribed; for my MS. was written in the year 1435, a century 
before the Cardinal was born. From an appropriation of pu- 
nishment to the seven deadly sins, it has sometimes been sup- 
posed that hell has been divided into as many compartments. 
The goldsmiths Baldini and BoticeUi, very early, if not the ear- 
liest engravers, executed a print wherein the damned are repre- 
sented in separate places of torment which resemble ovens, each 
inscribed with a particular vice -/- and Erasmus mentions certain 
divines who make as many divisions in hell and purgatory, and 
describe as many different sorts and degrees of punishment as if 
they were very well acquainted with the soil and situation of these 
infernal regions. ** 

But to return from this excuision : I would observe that in 
(he ' Boeck van Jhesus leven,'" there is a wood engraving oi the 



* Landseer's Lectures on Engraving, p, 25j. 

^ Erasmus's Praise of Folly, 12n:o. 1724, p. 10i>. 

*= Mentioned at p. 112. 



Descent into Hell, representing Christ standing with his banner 
in front of hell, its gates off the hinges, and Adam and Eve witli 
other souls praying to him for their release : by the side of this 
cut the devil is depicted on his knees with his claws folded 
across his breast, and bending in a posture of supplication. There 
are also wood cuts of this subject in two editions of the ' Biblia 
Pauperum,' a block book ; and another in the ' Speculum Hu- 
manas Salvationis,' besides others in works of almost equal curio- 
sity, whose titles escape my recollection. It seems that there 
was formerly in Canterbury cathedral a painted glass window of 
* Christus spoliat Infernum.'* Probably it was put up as a suit- 
able illustration to the Gospel of Nicodemus which Erasmus, 
when he visited England, saw chained to the pillars of that cathe- 
dral for the edification of the visitors.^ The ancients represented 
Christ like a mighty champion entering the territories of hell, 
and fighting for the space of three days with the devil till he had 
broken the strength of his malice, and quite destroyed his power 
and force, and brought with him the holy souls he desired to 
release.'^ 

BeiinardiiNus de Bust is in his seventeenth sermon on the 
Rosary, printed at Hagenaw in 1580, affirms, that the hole wherein 
the cross stood went down into limbus, a horrible prison, where the 
fathers were near to the horrible devils under the earth, and that 
the blood of Christ descended thereby, which when they felt 
they rejoiced, and then appeared the soul of Christ which illumi- 
nated the whole place ; he saluted them, shook them by the 
hand, blessed them, and drew them out.'* The concluding scene 
has been usually selected by the artist for the exercise of his pen- 
cil. The Gospel of Nicodemus seems to have been the prin- 
cipal source from whence poets and painters of former times 
described the Descent into Hell. Belief in the event may be 



* Oinaments of Churches Considered^ 4to. appendix, p. 8. 
*" Erasmus's Colloquies by Baily, 8vo. 1725, p. 354. 
*= King's History of the Apostles Creed, 8vo. 1737, p. 223. 
'' Carlil on the Descent of Christ, 12nio. 1582, p. 98. 



124 

traced so far back as the second century. Though the various 
modifications that belief has undergone, rather belongs to theolo- 
gical inquiry, and would encumber mine, yet I propose to lay 
before the reader a few references concerning its antiquity and 
adaptation to popular understanding. 

The Vision of Peirs Ploughman^ a poem, written according 
to Warton, about 1384, but according to Dr. Whitaker about 
1362, and ascribed to Robert Langland, a secular priest in the 
county of Salop, was first printed in 1553, and lastly from a MS. 
contemporary with the author in 1813.* This ancient work con- 
tains an elaborate description of Christ's descent into hell, which 
on comparison will be found to have been taken from the Gos- 
pel of Nicodemus : some extracts are annexed with their para- 
phrase in modern Enghsh prose subjoined. 

* Wiche a light and wich a leom lay by fore helle."' 
What a light and a gleam appeared in the front of hell ! 

' Lo helle myghte nat holde bote openede iho God tholede 
And let out Symonde'» sones.'*= 
Lo, hell could not contain hut opened to those who awaited God, and let out the 
sons of Simeon. (Nicodemus, xiii. 13, &c,) 

* Attolite portas principes vestras, devamini porte eternaleSf &c. 

A voys loude in tliat light to Lucifer seide 

Princes of this palys un do the gates, 

For here cometh with coronne the kynge of alle glorie. 

Then syhede Satan, and seide — ^ 
' Lift up your great gates, and ye everlasting doors he ye opened.' In that light 
a voice cried aloud to Lucifer : Princes of this palace open the gates, for here 
cometh with his crown the King of glory. Then Satan groaned and said, 

* Ac rys up Ragamoffyn. and reche me alle the barres 
Ar we thoi w bryghtnesse be blent, bane we the gates 
Cbeke we and cheyne we. and eche chync stoppe 
And thow Astrot hot out. and have oute knaves 
Coltyng and ai bus kynne. our catel to save 
Brynston boilaunt brenuing. out casteth hit 



* The Vision of Peirs Ploughman, by Dr. T. D. Whitaker, 1813, 4to. 
^ Ibid. p. 346. ^ Ibid. p. 353. ^ Ibid, p, 354. 



125 

Al hot in here hevedes. that entren in ny the walles 

Setteth bowes of brake* a brasene gonnes 

And sheteth out shot e ynowh.'a 
Arise Ragamuffin and bring all the bars, before we are blinded with the brightf 
ness. Bar we now the gates, bolt we and chain we, and stop up every chink. And 
thou Astaroth go forth and muster the servants, Colting and all his kindred, to save 
our chattels. Cast boiling and burning brimstome, all hot, upon their heads who 
shall enter within these walls. Set the steel bows, and brazen guns, and shoot out 
shot in plenty. 

* Yf he reve me of my ryght. he robbeth me by mastrie 
For by ryght and reson. the reukes that beon here 
Body and soule beth myne. bothe good and ille 

For he hyms self hit seide. that syre is of helle 
That Adam and Eve. and al bus issue 
Sholden deye with deol. and here dwelle evere 
Yf thei touchede a treo. oth*" toke ther of an appel 
Thus thees lorde of light such a lawe made 
And sutthe he is so leel a lord, ich leyve that he wol nat 
Reven ous of oure ryght. sutthe reson hem dampned 
And sutthe we ban be seosed. sevene thowsend wynt/'' 
If he bereave me of my right, he shall rob me by force; since by right and reason 
the rooks that are here are mine, body and soul, good and bad : for he himself who 
is Lord of hell said, that Adam and Eve and all their issue should die with sorrow, 
and dwell here for ever if they touched a tree, or took an apple therefrom. Thus 
this Lord of light made such a law, and since he is a Lord of truth, I believe that he 
will not deprive us of our right, because they are rightfully damned^ and because we 
have been seized of them seven thousand years. 

*"What lord ert thu quath Lucifer, a voys a loud seyde 
The lord of myght and of man. that made alle thynges 
Duke of this dymme place, a non undo the gates 
That Crist nowe comen in. the kynges sone of hevene 
And with that breth helle brake, with alle Beliales barres 
For eny wye other warde. wyde openede ze gates.'^ 
What Lord art thou ? said Lucifer. A voice cried aloud, The Lord of power 
and of man, who made all things, the rulei' of this dark place, open the gates forth- 
with, that Christ the son of the King of heaven may come in. And with that breath 
hell burst f and all Belial's bars, notwithstanding the guard, the gates flew wide open. 

* Lo me her quath our lorde. lyf and soul« bothe 
For alle synful soules. to save oure beyere ryght.'^ 

Behold me here quoth our Lord, both life and soul for all sinners to save our bre* 
thren. 

* Ibid. p. 354. b Ibid. p. 365. *= Ibid, p. 358. '^ Ibid. p. 359. 



126 



^ For the lesynge tbat thow Lucifer, iowe til Ece. 
Thow shalt abygge bitere quath God. and bond hyoi with cheyiaes 
Astrott and alleo there, hudden hem in lieornes 
Thai dorst nat loken on oure Lorde. the leste of hem alie 
Bote leot hym leden forth wich hym luste. and leve wiche him lykede.'a 
For the falsehoods wherewith thou Lucifer liedst unto Eve, thou shalt abide 
crushed, quoth God; and he bound him with chains. Astorath and the rest hid 
themselves in droves. Tlie most distant of them all durst not look on Christ, but tet 
him take away whom he desired, and leave whom he pleased. 

A volume in the British Museum ^ containing a collection of 
MS. Poems, dated the 34th year of K. Henry VI. (about 1456), 
preserves a poem entituled, What Chryst hath done for us; 
wherein Christ says. 

To belle I went this chartre to schewe, 
Before thy fo Sathanas, that schrewe ; 
He was schent, and brought to grounde, 
Thorow maylys bore, and sperys wounde ; 
A charter com'an made was 
Bytwene me and Sathanas, 
All ray catel to have away 
Tliat he me reft- — 

In the same volume Oar Ladys Song of the Chyld thtit 
soked hyr hrest, relates that after the death of Christ, 

Then to belle he toke y« way 

W^ woundys wyde & all blody j 
Y* foule fendys to affray 

W* hym he bar y« cros of tre. 

Helle gatys full opyn to put fre 

When my sone wytb bond hem blest, 
Y* fendys roryd when they bym se : — 

Y« chyld ys resyn that soke my brest, 

Adam & Eve wytb hym he take, 

Kyng Davyd, Moyses, & Salamon ; 
And haryed hell every uoke, 

Wythyh hyt left He sbulyis non, 

But fendys yn hyt to dvvelle allon 
Lucyfer ther hard he prest 



a Ibid. p. 363. *> Harl. MS. 6396. 



Theryn to byde as stylle as ston : — 
The chyld is resyn that soke my brest. 

Thus 'comyfte he the feudys fele, 

And toke hys pray that he had boght ; 
And put hym yn to endles wele, — 

Ther joye & blys fayles noght. 

The Worlde and the Chylde, 2l Morality printed in 1522, 
mentions the release of the souls. Perseverance, one of the dra- 
matis personse, rehearsing ' the xii. Artycles of the fayth,' says, 

The fyfth artycle I shall yo tell ; 
Than the spryghle of godhed went to hell, 
And brough' ut the soules that there dyde dwell 
By the power of his own myght. 

In the articles of. Pierce Ploughmaris Crede,^ an old pro- 
duction, but not so old as the Vision, it is rehearsed that Christ 
was crucified, 

And sythen his blessed body was in a stone byried 
And descended a doun to the derk belle 
And fet out our formfadeis. 

William Dunbaji's Resurrection of Chri/ste,^ a Poem in 
the Bannatyne MS. 1568, begins — 

Done is a battell on the dragon blak, 
Our campioun Chryst confoundit hes his force, 
The yettis of hell ar brokin with a crak, 
The signe triumphall rasit is of the croce ; 
The divillis trymmiUis with hiddous voce, 
The saulis ar borrowit, and to the bliss can go, 
Chryst with his bind our ransoms dois indoce; 
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro. 

* * * 
The fo is chasit, the battell is done ceis, 
The presone brokin, the jevellours lleit and flemit ; 
The weir is gon, confermit is the peis, 
The fetteris lowsit, and the dungeon temit, &c. 



a Pierce the Ploughman's Crede was first printed in 1553. 
*» Ancient Scottish Poems, l2mo. Edinb. 1770, p, 85. 



198 
Bishop Corbet, m his witty Itinerary of 

Foure Clerkes of Oxford, doctours two, and two 
That would be docters, 

laments the secularization of church appurtenances at Banbury by 
the puritans, who he describes as. 



They which tell 



That Christ hath nere descended into hell. 
But to the grave.* 

Not to trouble the reader with further poetical recognitions of 
this subject, he is presented with a few opinions more gravely 
dehvered by persons of higher authority in other respects, and 
some of them living in the earliest ages. 

John Boys, dean of Canterbury, where he died in l6£5, says 
in one of his sermons, that ' hell is under the earth and twofold ; 
namely, 1. The pit of the dead or the grave which is upper hell. 
2. The pit of the damned, which is the nethermost hell ; and 
that Christ descended into the nethermost hell zohere sinners are 
punished eternally , not to suffer any punishment, but as a con- 
queror to triumph over death and the devil in their own kingdoms/'* 

Bishop Latimer in a sermon before King Edward VI. 
says, ' I offer it unto you to consider and weigh it, there be 
some great clerks that take my part, and I perceive not what evil 
can come of it, in saying, that our Saviour Christ not only in soul 
descended into hell, but also he suffered in hell such pains as the 
damned spirits did suffer there. Surely I believe verily, for my 
part^ that he suffered the pains of hell proportionally, as it corres- 
pondeth and answereth to the whole sin of the world. He would 
not suffer only bodily in the garden and upon the cross, but also 
in his soul, when it was from the body, which was a pain due for 
our sin. Some write so, and I can believe it, that he suffered in 



a Corbet's Poems by Gilchrist, p. 202. Richard Corbet was successively 
chaplain to James I., dean of Christchurch, Bishop of Oxford, and Bishop of 
Norwich: he died in 1632. 

*> Boys's Postil?, fol. 16^9. p. 956. 



129 

the very place, and I cannot tell what it is, call it what ye will, 
even in the scalding house, in the uglisomeness of the place, in 
the presence of the place, such pains as our capacity cannot at- 
tain unto.'^ 

Calvin held the opinion that the soul of Christ in the descent 
into hell, really suffered the pains of tJie damned, and that those 
which are saved by his death should have endured in hell the tor- 
ments of the damned, but that he being their surety, suffered those 
torments for them.'' 

Augustine, a father of the church in the 4th and 5th cen- 
tury^ says, that hfe could not find where the habitation of the 
souls of the just is in Scripture called hell ; that he never met 
with the word ' Hell' used in a good sense in the canonical Scrip- 
ture ; that it is probable there were two hells divided by the 
great gulph, one where the just were at peace ; the other where 
the souls were tormented ; that the ancient saints were in a place 
remote from torment, yet that they were in hell till the hlood of 
Christ, and his descent thither, delivered them; and that since 
that time the souls of believers go to hell no more.'^ 

Jerome, a father of the church in the Mh century, affirms 
that the blood of Christ quenched the flaming sword at the en- 
trance of paradise, that the thief entered it with Christ, followed 
hy the souls of all the saints who had been before detained in 
Mil ; and that the souls of all good men do now instantly pass to 
paradise upon their dissolution.*^ 

Athanasius, a father of the church in the 4th century, has 
a piece attributed to him by some, but denied by others, which 
enjoins the reader to ' remember the twelfth hour, for in that 
our Saviour descended into hell ; hell shuddered in beholding 
him, and cried aloud, who is he that cometh with great power ? 
who is he that trampleth on the brazen portals of hell, and un- 
bindeth the chain of my captives?'^ Bishop Pearson says that 

* Latimer's Sermons, 4to. 1635, p. 86. 

^ Pearson on the Creed, fol. 1741, p. 231. 

<= King on the Creed, p. 211. ** Ibid. p. §10. 

^ Hayley's Essay on Old Maids, v. ii. p. 195. 



130 

AlhanasiuSy speaking of Christ triumphing over Satan, mentions 
hell spoiled, to wit, of those souls which, before, it kept in hold.^ 

Epiphanius, a father of the church in the 4th century, 
writes that the soul of Christ descended into the nethermost parts 
where Death and Hell being ignorant of his divinity, assaulted 
his soul ; that he broke the sting of death, rent in sunder the ada- 
mantine bars, loosed the bonds of hell, and brought from thence 
SOME of (he captive souls, as a pledge to those he left behind, 
that they should arrive unto the same liberty.'' 

Origen and Ambrose, fathers of the church in the Srd 
century, were of opinion, that before the death of Christ the 
souls of the patriarchs went to hell, where they remained in joy 
and happiness till the separated soul of Christ descended into 
those infernal regions, and breaking the bonds thereof, freed the 
captives and led them into heaven, whither the souls of all be- 
lievers do now instantly go.*" 

Clement Alexandrinus, a father of the church in the 
2nd century, was of opinion that Christ descended down into 
hell to preach the Gospel to the departed souls, and that he 
saved many of them, that is, all that believed; and that the apos- 
tles also after their death descended likewise into the same place, 
and for the same purpose.'^ 

Prudentius, a Christian Poet, who flourished in the fourth 
century, speaking of Christ's resurrection, says, ' I remember 
that a corporeal God easily came up again from Phlegethofi,' the 
place wherein the souls are tormented. In another of his pieces 
he addresses Lazarus in these terms, ' Tell us whose voice you 
heard under the lowest places of the earth, and what force went 
through the hidden places where the dead make their abode : 
since when Christ recalled you, and ordered you to come forth 
from the black depth wherein you was, you heard as if you had 
been near. By what so neighbouring an abyss is the kingdom of 



a Pearson on the Creed, p. 250, n. 

^ King on the Creed, p. 223. "" King on the Creed, p. 209. 

«» Daille's Right use of the Fathers, 4 to. 1675, Part ii. p. 67. 



131 

darkness almost joined with the upper parts of the earth ? where 
is the dismal Tenariis by which they go down through a vast ex- 
tent ? and that hidden river which rolls flames in its channel 
which nothing can fill ?' The same Poet speaking in one of his 
Hymns of Christ's descent into the place of torment, relates that 
' the spirits of the wicked, the night in which God came from the 
lakes of Acheron had some solemn releases from their torments. 
Tartarus languished with milder punishments ; the people of the 
shades free from fire, were glad to have some rest in their prison, 
and the rivers of brimstone did not boil as they were wont to do/' 
From these citations it will appear that the descent of Christ 
into hell, and his carrying away the souls, is a most ancient doc- 
trine. In one thing all the Fathers agree, that hell is below the 
surface of the earth, and most of them suppose in its centre, w here 
the souls of the dead both good and bad await the final doom ; 
the good in a state of quiescence, the bad in a state of torment. 
They all likewise agree that Christ descended into hell, but there 
is great diversity of opinion among them as to the part of hell 
into which he descended. Some believe that Christ descended 
to the souls of those who died in the fear of God, and led them 
with him into heaven ; some again think that the souls of the 
good are still in a subterranean place which they call Abraham's 
bosom, where they are to stay till the day of resurrection ; others, 
who are of opinion that hell denotes only a place of torment, say, 
that Christ really descended into the place where the devils and 
wicked men are tormented, and they believe that he deHvered the 
souls suffering punishment for their sins. Some again think that 
Christ released some only of those souls, others that he altogether 
emptied hell ; and this was Cyril's opinion, who assures us that 
when Christ was risen he left the devil alone in heW' They 
who thought that hell was wholly emptied and every soul released 
from pain, were branded with the name of heretics; but to be- 
lieve that many were delivered was both by them and many others 



Le CIrrc's Lives, 8vo. 1696, r- 299, 303. •» Ibid. p. 301. 



132 

counted orthodox. Augustine in his book of Heresies reckons 
this as the seventy-ninth heresy j for Augustine was one of those 
who held that the faithful before the death of Christ were with 
God and aheady happy, and needed no translation, and that the 
object of Christ's descent into hell was to deliver some who were 
in tojmentj while others who were in that state he left.* 

Bishop Pearson thinks that for above five hundred years 
after Christ there were very few, if any, of those who believed 
that Christ delivered the saints from hell, who at the same time 
believed that he left all the damned there.^ At the present time 
the schools deliver it as a point of faith and an infallible certainty 
that the soul of Christ descending into hell, delivered the souls of 
all the saints, and conferred upon them actual beatitude.^ Accord- 
ingly in the celebration of mass, the priest .takes the cloth from the 
chalice to signify the removal of the stone from Christ's tomb ; 
immediately afterwards he elevates the host to signify Christ's re- 
surrection ; and he then divides the host into two parts, one of 
w hich signifies the joy in heaven at the resurrection of Christ, and 
the other part signifies the joy of the fathers on their being deli- 
vered. In a child's book containing instructions for hearing mass,** 
the prayer directed to be said by the child at this part of the ser- 
vice, recites that Christ ^ descended into limbo, and delivered 
thence the souls of the fathers till then detained there ;' and the 
wood cut, over this prayer, represents the descent and the broken 
gates, Christ lifting out the souls, and the terror of the devils. 

It appears then that the descent into hell, has been perpetuated 
through all ages of the Catholic church in some form or other. 
Addressed in former times to the meanest capacities of the igno- 
rant by dramatic representations, and by circumstantial relations, 
from the Gospel of Nicodemus, through a variety of old works 
printed for religious instruction and devotional exercise, it is not 



a Pearson on the Creed, p. 241. 

^ Ibid. p. 246. " Ibid. p. 245. 

^ Daily Exercises for Children, Keating, 18ii:l,24mo. p. 70. 



133 

wonderful that the bodily descent should have obtained popular 
belief. They who desire to inquire concerning the theological 
tenet, may consult the books I have cited with advantage, and 
especially what Bishop Pearson says in his Exposition of the 
Apostles' Creed. From that work, which is a storehouse of in- 
formation upon the point, and Lord King's History, Bishop 
Horsley seems to have obtained every fact and argument that he 
uses in his celebrated sermon on the descent. 

The Rev. William Crashaw, Preacher at the Temple 
Church, published in I616 his ' Clear Confession of the Chris- 
tian Faithy according to the order of the Apostles Creed, wherein 
he says, ^ I also beleeue, that being vpon the same crosse, dying 
and yeelding vp his spirit vnto God his father, hee descended into 
hell, that is to say, that he hath truely tasted and experimented 
the greatest distresse and dolours of death, together with the 
paines and flames of hell fire, that is to say, the fury, wrath, and 
seuere iudgement of God vpon him, as if hee had beene a man 
halfe damned because of the sinnes of the world, which he bare 
vpon him. See here that which I simply vnderstand by the des- 
cent of Christ into hel. Moreouer, I know that this article was 
not in the beginning, in the Creed, and that it was otherwise 
vnderstood and interpreted by diuers that adiudged Christ truely 
and indeed to haue descended into the place of the damned, air 
ledging the text of Saint Peter, which 1 confess from my selfe to 
bee hidden for the present. — I neither beleeue nor confesse that 
there are any but two places in the other world, that is to say, 
paradise for the faithful and chosen with the angels, and hel for 
the vnfaithfull and reprobate with the diuelis.' Between Bishop 
Horsley's sermon affirming the subterranean descent of the soul 
of Christ, and this confession, there is a wide difference. CarliFs 
old treatise before quoted, h a learned and excellent exposition of 
the subject from the passage in Peter, with abundance of curious 
information : I much regret that limitation of room and appre- 
hension that t have already too much diverged, will not suffer me 
to extract from it.* 

* As the Descent of Christ into hell to release the saints, is a doctrine of the 

R 



1S4 



Catholic Church, so it prepares to celebrate his Ascension into heaven by 
Litanies and public processions during three days before Holy Thursday, 
the anniversary of that event. These are called Rogation days. In these 
processions the cross is borne, banners are carried, and the bells are rung to 
chase the fiends ; as they are also when it thunders, to abash and drive aveay 
the wicked spirits in the air that cause the tempest. The Golden Legend says, 
that the bearing of banners with the cross on Rogation days, is to represent the 
victory of Christ in his resurrection and ascension ; that the people followed 
the cross and the banners, as Christ was followed when he ascended to heaven 
with a great prey ; and that in some churches, especially in France, it was the 
custom to bear a dragon with a long tail filled with chaff: the first two days 
it was borne before the cross, with the tail /mZ^, but on the third day it was borne 
after the cross, with the tail empty ; by which it was understood that on the first 
two days the devil reigned in the world, but that on the third day he was dis- 
possessed of his kingdom. 

In this procession it is clear that the devil was represented by the dragon. 
^ There was war in heaven : Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; 
and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil.' (Rev. xii. 
7, 9.) Sparke in his ' Primitive Devotion,' (1673, 8vo. p. 565,) cites Augustine 
to show that Michael was allegorical of Christ, ^ so that the meaning (of Rev. 
xii.) is but briefly this, that Christ and his members fight against the devil and 
his.' Seeing that the dragon io the ecclesiastical processions on Rogation days 
was made to allegorize the kingdom of Satan and its overthrow, I with much de- 
ference suggest for the consideration of antiquaries, who suppose that the dragon 
of the pageants is the dragon of St. George, whetlser, on the contrary, this figure 
may not be in truth the dragon of St. Michael, or in other words the devil. My 
notion is strengthened by the statement in the Golden Legend, that the dragon 
was at least as common to the Rogation processions abroad, as to those in 
England. But leaving this subject, I purpose a short discursion concerning 
Michael, the dragon's conqueror. 

The author of the ' Protestant Beadsman,' (1822, p. 83.) observes, apparently 
from Sparkes's Devotion, that Blichael is noticed ' by St. Jude as fighting per- 
sonally with the devil about the body of Moses ;' and to this he affixes as a note, 
that ' it has been plausibly conjectured that the body of Bloses signifies the 
Mosaic law, as the body of Christ is often used for the Christian church ; and 
that the attempt of the devil which Michael resisted was to rebuild and restore 
the temple.' Now concerning this passage in Jude, there is a difficulty whichy 
it seems to me, had the author of the Protestant Beadsman been acquainted 
with, would have restrained him from attaching much importance to the signifi- 
cation that he supposes to be ^ plausibly conjectured' respecting the body of 
Moses ; yet in adducing this difficulty 1 desire to be understood as wishing to 
avoid offence to a writer whose amenity bespeaks corresponding civility of de- 
meanor ; nor is it produced with the slightest view to its defence, but simply 
as it is proposed elsewhere. 

The passage in Jude, (verse 9) is in these words, ' Yet Michael the archangel^ 



135 

when contending' with the devily he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring' 
against him a railing accusation, but said. The Lord rebuke thee.* Michaelis says, 
that the whole history of this dispute has the appearance of a Jewish fable, 
which it is not very easy at present to discover, because the book from which 
it is supposed to have been taken by the author of the epistle is no longer ex- 
tant. Origen found the story of Michael's dispute with the devil about the 
body of Moses, in a Jewish Greek book called the Assumption of Moses, whic'h 
was extant in his time though it is now lost, and he was thoroughly persuaded 
that Jude's quotation was from it. In consequence of this he himself quoted 
another passage from the Assumption of Moses, as a work of authority, in proof 
of the temptation of Adam and Eve by the devil. The Jews iuiagined the per- 
son of Moses was so holy that God could find no reason for permitting him to die : 
and that nothing but the sin committed by Adam and Eve in Paradise, which 
brought death into the world, was the cause why Moses did not live for ever. 
Now, in the dispute between Michael and the devil about Moses, the devil 
was the accuser, and demanded the death of Moses. Michael therefore re- 
proached him with having possessed the serpent which seduced Eve, and with 
being the cause of that sin which occasioned the death of Moses. CEcumenius 
has a passage which contains a part of the story related in the Assumption of 
Moses, and which explains the reason of the dispute concerning Moses's body. 
According to this passage Michael was employed in burying Moses ; but the 
devil endeavoured to prevent it by saying that he had murdered an Egyptian, 
and was therefore unworthy of an honourable burial. The ^ Phetirath Moshe,' a 
Hebrew book written in a later age, contains a story which though probably 
ancient, is not the same with that cited either by Origen or CEcumenius, be- 
cause the devil, Samael, does not dispute about the burial of Moses, nor does 
Michael reproach the devil with having possessed the serpent which seduced 
Eve, nor with saying to him, * The Lord rebuke thee ;' but he himself rebukes 
the devil, and calls him ' thou wicked wretch;' and Moses calls him the same. 
This is the reverse of that related in the Epistle concerning the dispute of 
Michael with the devil. Michaelis having thus expressed himself, proceeds to 
observe that the substance of the story related in this book, (the Phetirath 
Moshe,) as far as concerns the present inquiry, is as follows: 

* Moses requests of God under various pretences, either that he may not die at 
all, or at least that he may not die before he comes into Palestine. This request 
he makes in so froward and petulant a manner, as is highly unbecoming not only 
a great prophet, but even any man, who has expectations of a better life after this. 
Ill short, Moses is here represented in the light of a despicable Jew, begging for 
a continuance of life, and devoid both of Christian faith, and of heathen courage : 
and it is therefore not improbable, that the inventor of this fable made himself 
the model, after which he formed the character of Moses. God argues, on 
the contrary, with great patience and forbearance, and replies to what Moses 
had alleged relative to the merit of his own good work. Further, it is God 
who says to Moses that he must die on account of the sin of Adam : to which 
Moses answers, that he ought to be excepted, because he was superior in merit 



136 

to Adam, Abialiam, Isaac, &c. In the mean time, Samael, that is the angel of 
death, whom the Jews describe as the chief of the devils, rejoices at the ap- 
proaching death of Moses. This is observed by Michael, who says to him, 
' Thou wicked wretch, I grieve, and thou laughest.' Moses after his request 
had been repeatedly refused, invokes heaven and earth, and all the creatures 
around him, to intercede in his behalf. Joshua attempts to pray for him, but 
the devil stops Joshua's mouth, and and represents to him, really in Scripture 
style, the impropriety of such a prayer. The elders of tlie people, and with 
them all the children of Israel then offer to intercede for Moses : but their 
mouths are likewise stopped by a million eight hundred and forty thousand de- 
vils, which on a moderate calculation make three devils to one man. After 
this, God commands the angel Gabriel, to fetch the soul of Moses: but Gabriel 
excuses himself, saying, that Moses was too strong for him, Michael receives 
the same order, and excuses himself in the same manner, or, as other accounts 
say, under pretence that he had been the instructor of Moses, and therefore 
could not bear to see him die. But this last excuse, according to the Piietirath 
Moshe, was made by Zingheil the third angel, who received this command. 
Samael, that is, the devil, then offers his services ; but God asks him how he 
would take hold of Moses, whether by his mouth, or by his hands, or by his feet, 
saying that every part of Moses was too holy for him to touch. The devil, 
however, insists on bringing the soul of Moses : yet he does not accuse him, 
for, on the contrary, he prizes him higher than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
The devil then approaches towards Moses to execute this voluntary commis- 
sion : but as soon as he sees the shining countenance of Moses, he is seized with 
a violent pain, like that of a woman in labour.' Michaelis continues to relate that 

* Moses instead of using the oriental salutation, * Peace be with thee,' says to 
him in the words of Isaiah, ch. Ivii. 21. (for in this work Moses frequently quotes 
Isaiah and the Psalms), * There is no peace to the wicked.' The devil replies, 
that he was come by the order of God, to fetch his soul ; but Moses deters him 
from the attempt by representing his own strength and holiness : and saying, 

* Go thou wicked wretch, I will not give thee my soul,' he aflfrights the devil in 
such a manner that he immediately retires. The devil then returns to God, 
and relates what had passed : and receives an order to go a second time. The 
devil answers, that he would go every where God commanded him, even into 
hell, and into fire, but not to Moses. This remonstrance is, however, of no 
avail, and he is obliged to go back again. But Moses, who sees him coming 
with a drawn sword, meets him with his miraculous rod, and gives him so severe 
a blow with it, that the devil is glad to escape. Lastly, God himself comes : 
and Moses, having then no further hopes, requests only that his soul may not 
be taken out of his body by the devil. This request is granted him. Zinghiel, 
Gabriel, and Michael, then lay him on a bed ; and the soul of Moses begins to 
dispute with God, and objects to its being taken out of a body, which was so 
pure and holy, that no fly dared to settle upon it. But God kisses Moses, and 
with a kiss extracts his soul from his body. Upon this, God utters a heavy la- 
mentation, and thus the story in the Phetirath Moshe ends, without any men- 



tion of a dispute about the burial of Moses's body. This last scene, therefore, 
which was contained in the Greek book seen by Origen, is wanting in the He- 
brew. But in both of these works, Michael, as well as the devil, expresses the 
same sentiments in respect to Moses ; in both these works the same spirit 
prevails : and the concluding scene which was contained in the Greek book, is 
nothing more than a continuation of the same story, which is contained in the 
Hebrew.' Michaelis immediately after this puts the following question : 
* I seriously ask every impartial judge, whether that person could be an in- 
spired writer, or an immediate disciple of him who made manifest distinc- 
tions between the history of the Old Testament and the fabulous traditions of 
the Jews ; who has quoted such a book as that which I have just described, and 
selected from it a passage so apparently fabulous. Various attempts have been 
made to remove this difficulty, but with very little success ' 

This extract is from Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testatnent, translated 
and considerably augmented with notes by the present Bishop of Peterborough, 
(vol. iv. p. 378, &c.) printed at the expense of the university of Cambridge. As 
the Bishop's notes on the work have hitherto not extended beyond the Gospels 
and the Acts, he has not declared his opinion concerning this and other reasons 
stated by Michaelis, for hesitating to acknowledge that the Epistle of Jude is 
canonical. The passage in that Epistle which necessarily caused observation 
from Michaelis as a biblical critic, is seldom adduced in our day by protestant 
theologians. Its explication suggested as ' plausible' by the author of the Pro- 
testant Beadsmmi, and the introduction, as it appears to me, of Michael's dragon 
in the Rogation processions, as an allegorical personification of the devil, con- 
stitute my apology for introducing Michaelis's notice of Michael's contention 
with the devil about the body of Moses. To this may be added, that as its cu- 
riosity attracted my attention, this was another reason for supposing that some 
to whom Bishop Marsh's translation of Michaelis is unknown, would be interest- 
ed by the story. 



13S 



VI. HEARNE'S PRINT OF THE DESCENT 
INTO HELL. 



Witch. A sailor's wife had chesnuts in her lap, 

And mouncht, and monncht, and mouncht. ; — Give me, quoth I ; 
Aroint thee, witch I the rump-fed ronyon cries. 

Macbeth, Act i. So. 3. 
Edgar. Saint Withold footed thrice the wold ; 

He met the nightmare, and her ninefold ; 
Bid her alight, 
And troth her plight, 
And aro2/nf thee, \i itch, aro?/M^ thee! 

King Lear, Act iii. SC; 5. 



1 HE -original copper plate of Christ's Descent into Hell, en- 
graved by Michael Bnrghers, from an ancient drawing, for Hearne 
the Antiquary, being in existence, I have caused impressions to 
be taken from it, and inserted one opposite. This print is raised 
into importance by Dr. Johnson taking it as an authority for 
aroint, a word used twice by Shakspeare_, as may be seen in the 
above passages. Johnson in his notes, says, ' I had met with 
the word aroint in no other author till looking into Hearne's 
Collection, I found it in a very old drawing that he has pub- 
lished, in which St. Patrick is represented visiting hell, and put- 
ting the devils into great confusion by his presence, of whom 
one, that is driving the damned before him with a prong, has a 
label issuing out of his mouth with these words, out, out, arongt; 
of which the last is evidently the same with aroint, and used in 
the same sense as in this passage.' 

Upon this Steevens remarks, ' Dr. Johnson's memory on the 
present occasion appears to have deceived him in more than a 
single instance. The subject of the above mentioned drawing is 



M 



j3^gc^^^l^^ 




\Burg,Jculj? 



139 

ascertained by a label affixed to it in Gothic letters, Jesus Chris- 
tus, resurgens a mortuis spoliat infermim. My predecessor in- 
deed might have been misled by an uncouth abbreviation in the 
Sacred Name. The words outy out, arongt, are addressed to 
our Redeemer by Satan, who, the better to enforce them, ac- 
companies them with a blast of the horn he holds in his right 
hand. Tartar eum intendit cornu. If the instrument he grasps 
in his left hand was meant for a prongs it is of singular make/ 
Steevens then inserts an engravedyac simile of the instrument, 
and immediately says, that * Satan is not driving the damned 
before him ; nor is any other daemon present to undertake that 
office. Redemption and not punishment, is the subject of the 
piece. — This subject of Christ's exploit, in his descensus ad in- 
feros, (as Mr.Tyrwhitt has observed in a note on Chaucer, 3512), 
is taken from the Gospel of Nicodemus, and was called by our 
ancestors the harrowinge of helle, under which title it was repre- 
sented among the Chester Whitsun Playes, MS. Harl. 2013.' 

So far Steevens has corrected Johnson, and substantially stated 
the subject of Hearne's print, but let the reader look at it and 
say whether Steevens himself is correct, when he affirms that 
Christ is addressed ' by Satan! The devil that speaks is de- 
noted, by the horn he blows, to be the Porter or warder of hell, 
an office of high trust, topographically the highest in hell, yet 
very inferior in rank, and consequently filled by a devil of low de- 
gree. Nor is Steevens's mistake a mere slip of the pen, for he 
again calls this spirit Satan, and says, there was no * other daemon 
present.' In Hey wood's * Four P's,' the Pardoner relates that 
as soon as he found a female friend of his had gone to the infer- 
nal regions, he went after her to fetch her back : 

Not as who saith by authoritie 

But by the way of intreatie. 

And first to the devil that kept the gate 

I came, 

He knew me wel 



For oft. in the play of Corpus ChriMi 
He hath played the detil at Coveidrie, 

« * * * 

I said.to this devil, good maMer parte ,&c. 



140 

The Porter introduces the Pardoner to Lucifer, who pre- 
viously sends him a safe conduct under his hand, stating, 

that he may at libertie 

Passe safe without any jeopardiej 
Till that he be from us extinct, 
And cleerly out of helle's precinct. 
And, his pardons to keep iu save guarde, 
Me wil they lie in the porter's warde.^ 

Now in this old play both the porter of hell, and the porters 
abiding place are mentioned ; and it may be observed, that as 
in Hearne's print the devil in this employment blows a horn, so 
a very ancient Saxon MS. at the British Museum, wherein 
Christ is depicted releasing the souls, also represents him addres- 
sing a fiend, whose office of porter of hell is clearly shown by the 
eyes on his wings, emblematical of Cerberus-like watchfulness, and 
by his warder's horn, which with other implements he lets fall in 
terror from his hands.'' Likewise the Golden Legend says, that 

* Hncne a^ 3!|)ei?u ap.^t tiei^cenoeti in to tjelle tl^e npgtite be^an 
to tnere tUu. ants anone tjje goiter hlacU and })orrpble 
amonge ti)ej?m m ^cilence began to murmuc.''= Probably the no- 
tion of this post, and the alarm of its occupiers on Christ's ap- 
pearance to deliver the souls, is coeval with the earliest belief of 
the subject j for in the creed read in the fourth century at the 
council of Ariminum, a city of Italy, Christ is ' declared to have 
descended into hell, and there to have disposed of all things, at 
Zi)ho$e sight the porters of hell trembled.'* 

Again : \he prong in the devil's left hand of so 'singular make' 
to Steevens's apprehension, that he engraves it in his note, is as 
frequently put into the hands of devils by the old masters, as the 
iron comb or any other implement of torture. This might be 
exemplified by reference to several engravings, but it is sufficient 



a Dodsley's Old Plays, vol.i. p. 112. 

^ Cotton MS. Tiberius VI. 

*= Golden Legend, Art. Here hegynneth the resurrecyyon, 

" Socrates' Eccl. Hist. fol. 1663, p. 278. 



14J 

to refer to the volume of the great Show at Haerlem, wherein is 
a print representing Doot, Hel, and the Duivel, as walking in one 
of the processions, the Duivel holding a prong of exactly the same 
make.^ Steevens*s character for erudition in other respects has per- 
haps not only induced belief in the general reader that his engrav- 
ing of it is a curiosity ; but has occasioned his misconception to be 
reprinted in subsequent editions of Shakspeare to the present time. 
It is remarkable that Steevens, while trifling and erring in de- 
tecting the inaccuracy of Johnson concerning the figures in the 
print, appears to have entertained no doubt as to the correctness 
of Johnson's statement that the word engraved SrOIl^t, ' is evidently 
the same with aroint f and it is further remarkable that every sub- 

^ ' Const-thoonende Ivweel, by de loflijcke S'tadt Haerlem, ten versoecke 
vau Trou nioet blijcken, iu't licht gebracht, &c. Tot Zwol by Zacharias Heyus, 
Drucker des Landschapes van Over-ijssel, 1607/ 4to. 

Devils are not only represented with instruments of torture by painters, 
but are sometimes so described by writers. Querela, a Latin poem, ' supposed 
to be written by S. Bernard from a nightly vision of his,' contains such a de- 
scription. William Crashaw, an author mentioned before (p. 133.) who was fa- 
ther to Crashaw the poet, translated this poem under the title of * The Com- 
plaint or Dialogue betwixt the Soule and the Bodie of a damned man; each laying 
the fault upon the other.' (London, 1616, 24mo.) These are stanzas from it. 
The author in vision. 
After the Soule had sayd Their eares with running 

these mournefull words, sores hung flapping low, 

Behold, two Fiends, Foule filthy homes in their 

more blacke then pitch or night, blacke browes they wore, 

Whose shapes with pen Full of thicke poyson 

to write, no wit aflfordes, which from them did flow, 

Nor any hand of Their nayles were like 

painter pourtray right. the tushes of a bore. 

Shai'pe steely prickes These Fiends in chaines 

they did in each hand beurCf fast bound this wretched soule, 

Sulpluire and fire And with them hal'd lier 

flaming, they breath'd out; howling into hell : 

Tusked their teeth To whom on flockes 

like crooked mattockes were, ran other diuels more, 

And from their nosthrils And gnashing with their teeth 

snakes crawl'd round about. to dancing fell. 



l¥2 



sequent editor of Shakspeare has also acquiesced in Johnson's opi- 
nion without taking pains to examine the ground he rests it upon. 
Had Steevens inquired what piece in ' Hearne's collection' this print 
really belonged to, he would have ascertained it to have been in 
Forduni Scotichronicon, (1722, 5 vols. 8vo.) before p. 1403 of 
vol. v., and following the direction on the plate to the Preface, 



They welcomed her with 

greetings full of woe, 
Some wrestea her with cordes 

senceless of dread, 
Some SDatclit and tore with hooks 

drawne to and fro, 
Some for her welcome 

powr'd on scalding lead. 



Timds. 
Svch horror wee do 

on our seruants load, 
Then as half wearied 

the diuels cryed. 
Now art thou worse 

then was the crawling toade 
Yet thousand-fold 

worse torments thee abide. 



The instrument held by the porter-fiend in Hearne's print is formed to use 
saw-ways, like ^ hooks drawn to and fro,' 

A minute and horrifying account of hell torments, extracted from a modern 
publication, is in * The Miraculous Host tortured by the Jew,' But the binding of 
a sinner as an appendix to a devil is unique, I believe, as an infernal punish- 
ment. The representation is in a wood cut to a rare work entitled ♦ ^tt 
^t^ZlVHtn ?Un^t/ (1506, 4to.) and I end this note with a sketch from it 
by way of iail-piece. 




143 

§. 14 in vol. i., he would not only have met with the account of 
the print, but have also seen that Hearne himself gives the real 
word, from the drawing in his MS. 

Hearne commences the subject by saying, that, of all the calen- 
dars in his possession, that which Fleetwood, Bishop of Ely, pre- 
sented to him, is deserving of the greatest admiration. He ima- 
gines it to be one of the magical and astrological ones mentioned 
by old writers ; describes it to be full of pictures and prophecies ; 
and supposes it was written in the reign of Edward HI., and that 
it was the autograph or only copy. He is surprised that though 
it contains the names and portraits of all the saints held in great 
veneration throughout the whole year, yet that no mention occurs 
in it of St. Patrick. He inquires how this is, and conjectures 
that either St. Patrick was of no note with the English, or else 
that the author of this calendar, as well as others, considered the 
story of his purgatory a fiction. Then he notices some calendars 
that have it, probably, he says, out of compliment to the Irish ; 
and he observes that, if it be urged that there was no occasion for 
the author of this calendar to say any thing of purgatory because 
he was not treating concerning hell, that can be proved to be er- 
roneous, because he diligently depicts the fall of man and his 
liberation from the infernal regions; ' which diligence,' says 
Hearne, who evidently tattles thus to have an opportunity of giv- 
ing engravings to his readers from drawings that the worthy old 
man was himself amused with ; ' which diligence moreover, upon 
this subject, you will find to be sufficiently ridiculous from the 
pictures themselves, which I subjoin in the Appendix to the 
work ; in the first of which you will read Adam moritur et tran- 
sit ad infernum pro uno porno ; and in the second Jhesus Chris- 
tiis resurgens a mortuis, together with these words in our ver- 
nacular tongue, OUt» OUt, arOUQt, uttered by one of the daemons 
already very much alarmed, and blowing a horn/* 

* Hearue's words in his preface are; * Qiiam tameii in li^c re diligentiam ri- 
diculam satis essee picturis ipsis collides, quas in Appendice opesis subuectani : 
in quarum prima legitur, Adam moritur ei tra7isit ad infernum pro uno porno ; in 
secund^, Ihesus Ckristus resurgens d. mortuis spoliat ittfernum,, una cum hiace verbis 



144 

From this we see that the presumed ' arongt^ is on Hearne's 
own testimony, ' arovgtJ Independent of this indubitable con- 
firmation, there are other reasons for believing arougt to be the 
correct word, and consequently that the only authority for aroint 
is the twofold mention of it by Shakspeare. 

It is well known to every reader of old MSS. that from care- 
lessness the copyists frequently formed n and u alike ; and, in 
aron^t, as it is spelled in Hearne's print, the letter before the ^ a 
may have been so undeterminate in the MS. word, that Burghers, 
the engraver of the plate, being unacquainted with the orthography 
of the archaism, and preferring decision to correctness, wrote n 
when he should have written u, and thus converted the word 
arOUJt into aroni^t* Or, Burghers' transcript of U may really 
approach the original nearer than I have conjectured ; for as 
Hearne's honest accuracy is not to be outrivalled, it cannot be 
supposed that he would allow an engraving from a drawing in the 
Fleetwood Calendar, which he so highly commends, to be very 
wide of exactness.*" Though the inscriptions were secondary to 
his principal object, that of representing the scene, yet considerable 
faithfulness in the whole is to be presumed ; and, if Burghers' 
engraving be a tolerably fair fac- simile of both, it must be obvious 
to every one who examines the print, that however rude in design 
the drawing appears, the MS. inscriptions upon it were quite as 
coarse. For, in that at the top of the plate, U and n are so 
similar that the letters they are intended for are rather to be in- 
ferred from their connexion with other letters, than to be per- 
ceived from their difference of form. For example ; it would 



(lingua nostra vernacula) ab iino DaBmonam, (jam adraodum perturbatoriim) 
cornu inflante, OUtt OUt, aCOUgt pT^onunci^tis.'—Scotichronicon, vol. i. PijeF. 
p. I. 

a^ ^ is the Saxon g-, and sometimes gh, in MSS. 

^ Ritson, sparing as he was of praise, yet, while fish-wifing Warton, could 
afford to say of Hearne, that ' few if any can boast of such a sacred regard to 
truth, and of such unimpeached integrity : — he has never been detected in a 
wilful falsehood ; nor been ever charged with the slightest misrepresentation of 
the minutest facW—Cbs. on Hist. o/Eng. Poetnjj p. 36. 



145 

be doubtful whether tt in resurgens were not U ; and U in mor- 
tuis is so like n in aron?t, that it would actually be taken for 
n were mortuis a word of equivocal meaning. But in whatever 
way the error came upon the plate, Hearne has himself cured it 
by quoting the passage, in ' our vernacular tongue, cut, OUt» acougt,' 
as the words of the print. To this may be added, that aroitgt 
rhymes to out, out, and is the last line of a distich, 

<9ut, mt, 
Hrou0t* 

Such a couplet it would be quite natural for a monkish writer 
in a rhyming age to conceive a happy thought, and to introduce 
on such an occasion. Taking then arougt to be the real word, 
I just observe, that in all the engravings that I have seen of the 
Descent wherein devils appear, they are represented to be roaring, 
or violently clamoring in great fear ; and to assist the reader, I 
beg him to recollect that the terrified devil in the print, accom- 
panies the distich, out, out, arougt, with a blast of his horn, as 
an alarm to the infernal host. ^ 

Arougt I have not been able to find in any dictionary within 
reach ; but there is arout, to assemble together, in Urry's edition 
of Chaucer, where it stands thus : 

In all that land no Christin durst arout 
All Chiistin folk ben flemed fro that coimtre.a 

Now if arout were really Chaucer's word, it would go nigh 
in my opinion to settle the question ; but on looking further it 
appears that Chaucer's word is route, and that the letter a is pre- 
fixed by Urry, who put initial or final syllables to Chaucer's words 
for the purpose of assisting the measure where he supposed it de- 
ficient.*' It reads in Tyrwhitt's, as well as in other editions, 

In all that lend no cristeu dorst6 route. — 1. 4960. 
For the present taking arougt as a summons to assemble, the 



a Urry's Chaucer, p. 53. Man of Lawe's Tale, 1. 541« 
^ Ibid. Thomas's Preface. 



146 

words that seem most likely to exemplify it are as follow : — 
Teutonic or old Dutch, rot, a crowd or band of men ; * rot^ 
teUj to congregate : ^ old German, rotte, turba vagabonda, a 
wandering crowd, also a party or faction :*= old English, route, 
a company."^ The statute 2 Rich. II. cap. 6. speaks of riding in 
great routes to make entry into lands.* Rout also signifies the 
meeting of a large social party invited by a lady ; the assembly is 
called her rout J But leaving this sense, I lind in Saxon, reotan, 
or wreotan, crepitare, strepere, to clatter, or make a noise :" Scot- 
tish, ruther, a loud noise, a tumultuous cry, an uproar : Anglo- 
Saxon, hruthj commotion : Cambro-Britannic, rhuthr, impetus : 
rhuthroj cum impetu ferri : Irish, ruathaTj pillage, and hrid, a 
combat : Scottish, rutiior, a spoiler, an oppressor : also rout, rute, 
a blow, a severe or weighty stroke.** 

As in Hearne's engraving, the word projects beyond the ruled 
border, copied from the page of the calendar, is it not probable 
that the word arougt was a contraction of the amanuensis, to 
avoid an unseemly projection into the margin, which seldom or 
never occurs in MSS. beyond the extent to which arougt has 
exceeded its boundary line. Hearne would not have called the 
inscription ' words in our vernacular tongue,' if their spelling 
and pronunciation had not denoted their sense ; if then, spelt as 
arougt is, and recollecting the confined space which had been 
transgressed, we discover no one word that can reasonably be ima- 
gined to be arougt, may it not be an abbreviation of two words ? 
I imagine that a quotation from Spenser, in the Rev. Archdeacon 
Nares's glossary, is a clue to these words : — 

Harrow now, out, and well away! he cryde. — Faery Queen, ii. vi. 43. 

Mr. Nares defines harrozo, an exclamation of sorrow or alarm. 
The word out, a common exclamation of grief where we should 
now say alas, is also an interjection expressive of abhorrence 
and is used in that sense by Shakspeare : Queen Margaret says to 



a Kilian. Skinner. ^ Kilian. <= Wachter. *• Minsheu. ^ Ibid. 
^ Jamieson. e Lye. ^ Jamieson. 



147 

Gloster, ' out devil !'* Now omit the second word in Spenser's 
line, and we have harrow out, or arougt, a cry suitable to the 
porter of hell under his surprise and sudden terror. Jamieson, 
among other particulars respecting harro, says, that it is an out- 
cry for help, and that it seems to be merely the French word 
haro, or haroUy a cry used by the Normans, which when raised 
against a capital offender all were bound to pursue and seize him. 
The devil in the Newcastle play of Noah's Ark,^ exclaims— — 



Harro, and wel away, 



That ever I uprose this day. 

Wel away, means ala^l from palapa, Saxon, for woe on woe,^ 
and is therefore with propriety coupled to harro. The word 
haro is often used by the devil as an interjection in the old 
French and English mysteries. There is a Lancashire word pro- 
nounced and spelt areawt, which signifies get out, or away with 
thee ;'^ probably this provincialism is a reduction of the two words 
haro, out. But the orthography of English manuscripts in the 
age of Hearne's calendar was almost arbitrary. Its loose and 
undetermined character is sorely lamented by the preface writer 
to Bishop Bale's interlude of God^s Promises : he says that ' the 
same words being so constantly spelled different ways, makes it 
very certain they had no fixed rule of right and wrong in spelling ; 
provided the letters did but in any manner make out the sound of 
the word they would express, it was thought sufficient.' ^ 

These hints are for consideration, and may be of assistance per- 
haps, to others, who with the same inclination, are happily better 
qualified to discover and explain the derivation and meaning of 
Hearne's word ; it would ill become me to further agitate a point, 
that the learned alone can finally settle. 



* King Richard III. act 1. scene 3. ^ Brand's Newcastle, vol. it. p. 375» 

* Nares's Glossary. •• Boucher's Supp. to Johnson, art. areint, 

^ Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. i. 



148 



VII. ORIGIN OF MYSTERIES— FEAST OF 
FOOLS- FEAST OF THE ASS, &c. 



* What does civil history acquaint us with, but the incorrigible rogueries of 
mankind ; or, ecclesiastical history more than their follies?' fVarburton. 



A Jewish Play, of which fragments are still preserved in 
Greek Iambics, is the first Draaia known to have been written 
on a scripture subject,-^ It is taken from the Exodus, or the de- 
parture of the Israelites from Egypt under their leader and pro- 
phet Moses. The principal characters are ' Moses, Sapphora, 
and God from the Bush,' or God speaking from the burning 
bush. Moses delivers the prologue in a speech of sixty lines, 
and his rod is turned into a serpent on the stage. The author of 
the play is Ezekiel, a Jew, who is called the tragic poet of the 
Jews. Warton supposes that he wrote it after the destruction of 
Jerusalem, as a political spectacle to animate his dispersed bre- 
thren with the hopes of a future deliverance from their captivity 
under the conduct of a new^ Moses ; and that it was composed 
in imitation of the Greek drama at the close of the second cen- 
tury .•* 

Rymerthe antiquary relates, that in the first ages of Christianity 
any one concerned with the theatre was not allowed baptism. 
Cyril declares that when in our baptism zoe say, ' I renounce 
thee, Satan, »and all thy works and pomps,' those pomps of the 
devil are stage plays and the like vanities. Tertullian affirms 
that they who in baptism renounce the devil and his pomps, can- 

a Translated into Latin by Fr. Morellus, Paris, 1680. 
^ Warton, vol. ii. p, 371. 



149 

not. go to a stage play without turning apostates. Hence the 
Greek and Latin fathers had an ample field for their eloquence 
and declamation, before the Arians, the Gnostics, and other in- 
testine heresies, sprang up to divert them. Cyprian, Basil, and 
Clement of Alexandria, are very warm upon the occasion ; and so 
in many of his homilies is Chrysostom, who cries shame that peo- 
ple should listen to a comedian with the same ears that they hear 
an evangelical preacher. Augustine maintains that they who 
go to plays are as bad as those that write or act them. Tertul- 
lian in his warmth against the tragedians, observes, that the de- 
vil sets them upon their high pantqfles to give Christ the lie, who 
saidf nobody can add one cubit to his stature. Rymer adds, that 
these flashes and drops of heat, from single authors, had no such 
wonderful effect, for the tragedian still walked on in his high 
shoes. ' Yet might they well expect a more terrible storm from 
the reverend fathers when met in a body together, in .council 
oecumenical. Then indeed began the ecclesiastical thunder to fly 
about, and presently the theatres, tragedy, comedy, bear-baiting, 
gladiators, and heretics, are given all to the devil without distinc- 
tion. Nor was it sufficient for the zeal of those times to put 
down stage plays. All heathen learning fell under the like cen- 
sure and condemnation. One might as well have told them of 
the antipodes as persuaded the reading of Tully's offices : they 
were afraid of the Greek philosophy like children of a bugbear, 
lest it fetch them away. A council of Carthage would not allow 
that a bishop should read any heathen book. How heartily St. 
Austin begs God pardon for having read Virgil with delight in 
his graver years ! What a plunge was Jerome put to, by liuffinus 
laying to his charge the reading of heathen authors.' * 



* Rymer's short View of Tragedy, 8vo. 1693, p. 32, &c. 

The pluiigCf which Rymer says Jerome was put to by Ruffinus, arose during 
a controversy between them, in which Ruffinus charged Jerome with having 
pojured himself by reading the classics, after he had entered into an engage- 
ment of the most solemn nature that he would not. Tlie affair is rather cu- 
rious. — It is toldof oneNatalis, who lived before Jerome's time, that having ac- 
cepted of a bishopric among the heretics, he was severely scourged all night by 

T 



150 

It was this bliud zeal, Rymer sajs, that gave a pleasant prospect 
to the Emperor Julian, who opposed it by literally coniplying with 
it ; for he made a law that no Christian should be taught in the 
heathen schools, or make use of that learning. ^ There were two 
men living at that time, who exerted their talents to supply the 
deficiency of instruction and entertainment that the Christians 
experienced from Julian's edict: these were ApoUinarius, Bishop 
of Laodicea, b and his father, a priest of the same city; they 



angels, and the next morning repented and returned to the church. This pro- 
bably occasioned a trance, into which, Jerome was thrown. The saint says, that 
he was arraigned before the tribunal of heaven, and being asked his profession, 
answered that he was a Christian : * Thouliest,' said Clirist, * thou aitaCiceroniarif 
for the works of that author possess thy heart ;' whereupon he was condemned 
to be scourged by angels, and promised the judge not to read such wicked books 
again. The chastisement was so severely inflicted, that he declares, he never 
forgot it J yet, very unluckily, he some time afterwards went on quoting the 
classic writers as usual. Ruffipus twitted him with breaking his oath ; and 
Jerome plunged from the charge, by answering, that he could not forget what 
he had read, but that he had not read the classics since. (Butler's Lives 
of the SaintSf v. ix. p. 364.) Upon this, which is the affair alluded to by Rymer, 
an Italian * Ciceronian' observes, that if Jerome was whipped for writing in the 
style and manner of Cicero, he suffered flagellation for what he did not deserve, 
and might have safely pleaded not guilty. (JortirCs Remarks on Eccl. Hist, v. ii. 
p. 104.) This father, however his talents commanded admiration, was no great 
stickler for truth. He openly avowed that he disputed for victory, and that it 
was to be won at all hazards, and by any means. Ruflinus putting a home 
question to him that he was obliged to notice, the way iu which he did it, was 
not by answering it, but by asking Ruflanus, in gross terms, why the lower part 
of the human body behind is not placed before. He was greatly the superior 
of Rufiiaus, to whom he dealt such hard blows, that Daille pities him ; yet 
Jerome whimsically read his adversary a long lecture against mutual railing, 
and bringing accusations against each other, as being more proper at the bar 
than in the church, and fitter to stuff a lawyer's bag than a churchman's papers. 
' But the sport of it is,' says Daille, ' to see that after he hath handsomely be- 
laboured and pricked this pitiful thing from head to foot, and sometimes till the 
blood followed, he at length protesteth that he had spared him for the love of 
God » and that he had not afforded words to his troubled breast, but had set a 
watch before his mouth according to the example of the Psalms !' (Daille on the 
Right Use of the Fathers, pt. ii. p. 93.) After all, Erasmus says that Jerome had 
better manners than Augustine. 

a Rymer, p. 32. ^ He died in 382. 



151 

were both scholars well skilled in oratory and the rules of compo- 
sition, and of high literary renown. Apollinarius, the elder, a 
profound philologer, translated the five books of Moses into her 
roic verse, and in the same measure composed the History of the 
Israelites to the time of Saul, into a poem of twenty-four books, 
in imitation of Homer. He also wrote religious odes, and turned 
particular histories and portions of the Old and New Testament 
into comedies and tragedies, after the manner of Menander, Euri- 
pides, and Pindar. His son the Bishop, an eloquent rhetorician, 
and already an antagonist of Julian's, anxious that the Christians 
might not be ignorant of any species of Greek composition, 
formed the writings of the Evangelists and the works of the Apos- 
tles into dialogues, in the manner of Plato. ^ 

About the same time, Gregory Nazianzen, Patriarch and Arch- 
bishop of Constantinople, one of the fathers of the Church, and 
master to the celebrated Jerome, composed plays from the Old 
and New Testament, which he substituted for the plays of So- 
phocles and Euripides at Constantinople, where the old Greek stage 
had flourished until that time. If the ancient Greek tragedy was 
a religious spectacle,'' so the sacred dramas of Gregory Nazianzen 
were formed on the same model, and the choruses were turned 
into Christian hymns. One only of the Archbishop's plays is 

a Shepherd on the Common Prayer, 1801, v. ii. p. 431, note, Socrates 
Eccles. Hist. 1663. Fol. p. 305. Socrates observes, that in consequence of the 
labours of the Apollinarii, Julian's law was abrogated, and the Christians re- 
sumed their studies in heathen learning, which he says the apostle Paul did not 
only not forbid, but is seen not to have despised himself: ' For where I pray 
you,' inquires Socrates, * borrowed Paul this sentence? The Cretians are al- 
ways liars J evil beasts, slow bellies, (Titus, i. 13.) was it not out of Epimenedes, a 
poet of Crete? Or where learned he this? We are also his offspring; (Acts, xvii. 
28.) was it not out of the Phcenomena of Aratus, the Astronomer? That saying 
also. Evil communications corrupt good manners, (1 Corinth, i. S3.) sheweth 
plainly that be was well seen in the Tragedies of Euripides.' — Socrates Schol. 
ibid. p. 306. 

t> * All agree, that in the beginning it was purely a religious worship, and a 
solemn service for their holydays ; afterwards it came from the temples to the 
theatre, admitted of a secular alloy, and grew to be some image of the world 
and human life. When it was brought to the utmost perfection by Sophocles, 



lo2 

extant: it is a tragedy called Christ's passion. The prologue 
calls it an imitation of Euripides, and, on the same authority, 
we learn that the Patriarch has the honour, in this piece, of in- 
troducing the Virgin Mary's first appearance on the stage. The 
play is preserved in Gregory Nazianzen's vvorks.a The remainder 



the cliorus continued a necessary part of the tragedy ; but the music and dan- 
cing which came along with the chorus were mere religion, no part of the tra- 
gedy, nor had any thing of philosophy or instruction in them.' — Rymer, p. 19. 

M. Ouvaro3f (Essay on the EleusiniaJi 3Iysteries, 1817, 8vo.) is disposed to 
believe that the lesser Mysteries of the ancients comprehended symbolical repre- 
sentations of the history of Ceres and Proserpine, and Mr, Christie (in his * Ob- 
servations' appended to 01. Ouvaroflf's Essay) accords to that opinion. He thinks 
it probable that the priests at Eleusis, who in later times contented themselves 
with shewing ai">d explaining the machinery within the temple, were at first 
actors in a drama, and being persuaded that the paintings of the black and red 
Greek vases, originally deposited in tombs, were copied from transparent scenes 
in different mysteries, he introduces an engraving from a Sicilian vase, painted, 
as he conceives, to represent the four priests or agents in the Samothi acian and 
Eleusinian shows. Dr. Darwin {Botanic Garden, note xxii.) assigns reasons for 
supposing that the reliefs on the Portland vase constitute portions of the Eleusi- 
nian Mysteries, which he also affirms, consisted ofscenical exhibitions represent- 
ing and inculcating the expectation of a future life after death ; and he explains 
the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, as described by Apuleius, on the well-known 
beautiful gem, to be originally descriptive of another part of these exhibitions. 
Bishop Warburton's proof, (in his Divine Legation of Moses) that the sixth book 
of Virgil's JEneid represents some of these Eleusinian shows, is corroborated by 
Mr. Thomas Taylor (ia a Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries. — 
Pamphleteer, No. xv. and xvi.) M. Ouvaroff quotes Cicero, (De Leg. ii. 14.) 
as affirming that Athens produced * nothing more excellent than the Mysteries, 
■which exalt us from a rude and savage state to true humanity : they initiate us 
into the true principles of life, for they teach us not only to live pleasantly, but 
to die with better hopes.' Whether Rymer, in the passage quoted above, 
alluded to these secret rites, or to certain public ceremonies of ancient poly- 
theism, is not clear. Since his time, so much information has been communi- 
cated in our own tongue, that a mere English reader could easily draw up a 
curious memoir concerning the ancient customs that illustrate the origin of the 
drama. 

a Opera Greg. Naziacz. torn. ii. p. 233. Warton, vol. ii. p. 358. Sandys's 
Christ Passion, lesr, 8vo. Preface, 

Gregory * all inflamed with the love of God and zeal of his glory, applied 
himself to the making of comedies and tragedies, and the writing of all such 



153 

of his dramas have not survived those inimitable compositions over 
which they triumphed for a time. 

It is not known whether the religious dramas of the Apollinarii 
perished so early as some of their other writings that were ordered 
to be destroyed for a crime common in all ages, heresy ;^ but this 



verse; which he performed witli so much wit and elegance, and with such 
rare and admirable sentences, that the Christians found in his writings all t!\^y 
could desire in the heathen poets.' — Ribadeneira's Lives, vol. i. p. 333. 

At this time acclamations and applauses were used in churches as well as 
theatres. Jerome desired Gregory Nazianzen to explain to him what was meant 
by the second Sabbath after the firsts in Luke (c. vi. v. i.). Gregory answered, ' I 
will teach you that at church, where, when all the people shall applaud me, you 
willbe/orced to know what you do not know ; for if you, onlijj keep silence, you 
will be looked upon as a fool.'— jLe Clev&s Lives, 8vo. 1696. p. 289. 

a Lardner's works, 4to, vol. ii. p. 463. 

Heresy, in Greek, signifies election, or choke, and is used for any opinion which 
a man chooseth as best or most profitable. Heresy and heretic are often used 
by ancient writers as words of indifferent meaning ; and the several ways of 
philosophizing were called sects or kertsies, Johnson defines heresy, an opinion 
of private men different from that of the catholic and orthodox cliurch. 

Immediately after the Council of Nice, the Emperor Constantine issued a 
decree, ordering, that if there was any book extant written by Arius, that it 
should be burned to ashes, and the head of f.ny man found hiding or concealing 
one should be stricken off from his shoulders. The church exteuded the spirit 
of this edict to other books, for as every dissenter from its establishment was 
declared a heretic, pains were taken to destroy his writings; and hence the 
character and opinions of these persons are only known to us through the work^ 
of their enemies, the fathers of the church, who in their turn disputed, quar- 
relled, and misrepresented each other. — (Socrates Eccl. Hist, folio, 1663, p. 
221.) They had so great a horror of heretics, that they would not so much as pre- 
serve those of their writings that did not contain heresy ; and which might even 
have been useful to the church. Upon which account it i« that we have scarce 
any book of the ancient heretics existing. (Du Pin's Eccl, Hist. vol. i. p. 215.) 
Epiphanius, a Greek bishop in the fourth century, was canonized as a saint for 
abusing fourscore classes of men under the name of heretics, (Robinson's Eccles. 
Researches, jt, 54.) Although Eusebius, and other fathers, and even Irenaeus from 
whom the rest borrowed, charged the ancient heretics with using witchcraft 
and enchantment ; it has been questioned by the learned whether this was any 
more than a popular charge against meu who studied mathematics, and parti- 
cularly astronomy, for the ancient fathers perpetually confounded astronomy 
and astrology with magic. (Lardner's WorkSj 4to. vol. iv. p. 514.) It seems 



154 

is certain, that the learning tbey endeavoured to supply gradually 
disappeared before the progress of Constautine's establishment. 
Suddenly acquiring power, and finally assuming infallibility, ob- 
serving pagan feasts as religious festivals, consecrating heathen 



tliat the Lutheran church has not been behind hand with the catholic. One of 
its doctors, in a commentary on heresy and schism, has inserted, eataloguewise, 
no less than six hundred and thirty-two sorts of heretics, heresiarchs, and schis- 
matics, diversified as the birds of heaven, and agreeing in only one single point — 
the crime of not continuing in what is called the church, (Robinson's Eccles. Re- 
seurcheSf p. 125.) Heretic is a favourite term of reproach for difference of opi- 
nion. Dr. Daniel Williams, who bequeathed his valuable library to the dissen- 
ters, and the bulk of his property to public uses, was of spotless reputation, 
and the friend of the most enlightened men of his age, * yet he was not only 
reckoned a heretic, but attempts were even made to injure his moral cha- 
racter,' (Chalmers's Biog. Diet. vol. xxxii. p. 105.) The church of England is 
a heretic to the catholic church, which has an office of supplication for our re- 
conversion, (from whence the following is extracted,) entitled, 

The Litany of Intercession for England. 

EMEMBER not, O Lord, our offences, nor those of our Parents; nor 
take Revenge of our Sins. 

Lord have Mercy on us, &c. 

O God the Father^ Creator of the World, Have Mercy on England. 

O God the Son, Redeemer of the World, Have Mercy on England. 

O God the Holy Ghost, Perfecter of the Elect, Have Mercy on England. 

O Sacred Trinity, three Persons and one God, Have Mercy on England. 

Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for England. 

Holy Mary, Queen of Angels, whose powerful intercession destroys 
aii Heresies, Pray for England. 

St. Raphael, faithful guide of those that have lost their way. 
Pray for England. 

All ye holy Apostles and Evangelists, chief Planters of the Christian 
Fai.lli,and zealous Maintainehs of Catholic Union, Pray for England, 

All ye holy Bishops and Confessors, by whose wisdom and sanctity this 
Island was once a flourishing seminary of Religion, Pray for England. 

From presuming on their own private opinions, and contemning the 
Authority of thy Church, Deliver England, O Lord. 

We sinners. Beseech thee to hear us. 
That it may please thee to hasten the Conversion of this our miser- 
able Country, and re-unite it to the ancient Faith and Com- 
munion of Thy Church ; fVe beseech thee to hear us. 



K 



\55 

rites into christian solemnities, and transforming the non-obser- 
vances of primitive simplicity into precedents for gorgeous cere- 
mony, the church blazed with a scorching splendour that withered 
up the heart of man. Every accession to the dominion of its 
ecclesiastics over his property and intellect induced self-relaxation 
and sloth ; to the boldness that seized a liberal supply for spiritual 
support succeeded the craft that extended it to a boundless reve- 
nue for effeminate indulgence. The miraculous powers of the 
church wonderfully multiplied; but implicit belief in miracles was 
equivocal, unless the act of faith was accompanied by liberal con- 
tributions at the altar. The purchase of pardons for sin, and the 
worship of the reliques exhibited in sumptuous shrines, were effec- 
tual ways of warring with the powers of darkness, and the coffers 
overflowed with contributions. These active hostilities against 
Satan occasioned him to ascend upon earth, and, to terrify the de- 
vout, he often appeared to them in the natural ugliness of his 
own proper person. When put to flight, by masses and holy 
water, he took lodgings incog, in the bodies of careless people, 
nor would he leave a tenement he occupied, till he was forcibly 
turned out of possession by a priest acquainted with the forms of 
ejectment. Dislike to clean linen was a peculiar mark of piety, 
and dirty hermits emitted the odour of sanctity. Though their 
holiness was so violently hated by the devil, that he took the 
trouble to assault and tempt them in the holes of the earth and 
trunks of old trees where they inhabited, yet it was rewarded with 
visits to their chosen abodes from all the orders of heaven ; and 
by long familiarity with the powers of the other world, these 
' tender-nosed saints could detect the presence of invisible angels.' 
They who turned their backs upon the concerns of life were 
especial favourites above. A nun reported that Christ opened 
her side with his corporal hands, took out her heart, and then care- 
fully placing his own in the chasm, left it there and closed the 
wound, at the same time doing her the honour to wear her 
shift. Nor did the faithful who believed the former relation, 
doubt for an instant that the Virgin descended from heaven to visit 



156 

ihe ceils of monasteries, and milk her breasts into the mouths of 
monks. ^ Doubts were effectually removed by burning doubters. 
All who were privileged to shave the top of the head in a circle, 
as a token of emancipation from worldly superfluities, were part- 
ners in the profitable trade of granting licences for unmolested 
existence at the price of unconditional submission. Ecclesiastical 
policy accomplished its purpose : — the human mind was in a 
deliquium ; the hierarchy at the summit of its ascendancy. 

From the complete establishment of the church until within a 
,^ I short time before the reformation, darkness overspread the world, 
and the great mass of the clergy themselves were in a state of deplo- 
rable ignorance. During this period, in order to wean the people 



a The Miraculous Host, 1822, p. 30, &c. 

b In 1458, ^neas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius 11. observed of the Italian 
priests, that it did not appear that they had ever so much as read the New Tes- 
tament. (Hody de Bibl. Textibus, p. 464.) Robert Stephens,(who died in 1564,) 
tells us of the Doctors of the Sorbonne that being asked by him in what place 
of the New Testament such a thing was written, they ariswered, that they had 
read it in Jerome, or in the Decrees, but what the New Testament was they 
did not know. — Lewis's Hist, of Transl. of Bible, p. 53. 

At an entertainment given at Rome to the Pope and Cardinals, by Andrew 
Forman, bishop of Murray, and papal legate for Scotland, he blundered so m 
his latinity when he said grace, that his holiness and their eminences lost 
their gravity ; tlie disconcerted bishop testily concluded the blessing by giv- 
ing *all the false carles to the devil, in nomine patris, filii, et sancii spirilus ;' 
to which the company, not understanding his Scoto-Latin, said Amen, Many 
of the Scottish clergy affirmed, that Martin Luther had lately composed a 
wicked book called the New Testament, but that they, for their part, would 
adhere to the Old Testameat. A foreign monk, declaiming in the pulpit against 
Lutherans and Zuinglians, said to his audience : * A new language was invented 
some time ago, called Greek, which has been the mother of all these heresies ; 
a book is printed in this language, called the New Testament, which contains 
many dangerous things ! another language is now forming, the Hebrew ; who- 
ever learns it, immediately becomes a Jew.' The commissioners of the senate 
of Lucern, confiscated the works of Aristotle, Plato, and some of the Greek 
poets, vsrhich they found in the library of a friend of Zuinglius, concluding that 
every book printed in that language must be infected with Lutherauism. — Dn 
31^Crie's Life of Knox, vol. i. p. 343. , 



157 

from the ancient spectacles, particularly the Bacchanalian and 
calendary solemnities, religious shows were instituted partaking of 
the same spirit of licentiousness. About the year 990, Theophy- 
lact, patriarch of Constantinople, caused the Feast of Fools, and 
the Feas.t of the Ass, with other religious farces of that sort, to be 
exhibited in the Greek church.* 



In a synod of the rural deans of Switzerland, only three were found who had 
read the Bible; the others confessed that they wetje scarcely acquainted evea 
with the New Testament. — Hess's Life of Zuinglius, by Miss Aikin, p, 23. 

An ecclesiastic of eminence was asked what were the ten commandments; 
he replied there was no such book in the library. Martin Luther never 
saw a b4ble till after he was twenty-one years old, and had taken a degree in 
arts. Carlostadt had been a doctor of divinity twenty-eight years before he 
read the iScriptures, and yet when he stood for a degree in the university of 
WittenberL', he obtained au honour, and it was entered in the university records 
tliat he was sufficientissimus, Pellican could not procure one Greek Testament 
in all Germany; the first he got was from Italy. — Robinso7i's Eccl. Researches, 
p. 538. 

Erasmus lectured at Cambridge on the Greek grammar without an audience. 
He translated a dialogue of Lucian into Latin, and could not find a single stu- 
dent there capable of transcribing the Greek. He says, that when he published 
his Greek Testament in Greek, it met with great opposition. One of the col- 
leges at the same university forbad it to be used, and inflicted a penalty on any 
one who had it in his possession; nor ceased its resistance, till Henry VIII. in- 
terfered by his injunction. 

In the long night of papal gloom, both the Greeks and Latins enlightened 
their flocks by erasing the writings of ancient manuscripts, and writing eccle- 
siastical treatises upon them. — Jortin's Rem. on Eccl. Hist, v. iii. p. 25. 

They industriously obliterated the words of scripture itself, and supplied the 
space it occupied upon the parchment by their cloisteral contemplations. In 
this way the Moeso-Gothic version of the thirteen epistles of St. Paul, was con- 
cealed under the Latin trumpery of a monastic writer. The barbarians of the 
church buried the writings of Cicero and Frontinus beneath their ravings ; and 
to the unspeakable detriment of the republic of letters, such authors as Poly- 
bius, Dio, Diodorus Siculus, and some others who are quite lost, were meta- 
morphosed into prayer-books and homilies. — Rev. T. Home's Introd. to a Critical 
Knowledge of Scripture, edit. J 821, vol. ii. p. 96. Also Lady Morgan's Halt/, 
vol. i. c. 5. Monthly Mag. (Indexes, name Mai) and the Classical Journal. 

a The fact is recorded by Cedranus, one of the Byzantine historians, who 
flourished about the year 1050, in the following words: * Theophylact intro- 
duced the practice which prevails even to this day, of scandalizing God and the 

U 



158 

Beletus, who lived in 1182, mentions the Feast of Fools, as 
celebrated in some places on New-year's-day, in others on twelfth 
day, and in others the week following. In France, at different 
cathedral churches, there was a Bishop or an Archbishop of Fools 
elected ; and in the churches immediately dependent upon the 
papal see, a Pope of Fools. These mock pontiffs had usually a 



memory of his saints, on the. most splendid and popular festivals, by indecent 
and ridiculous songs, and enormous shoutings, even in the midst of those sacred 
liymns, which we ought to otFer to the divine grace with compunction of heart, 
for the salvation of our souls. But he, having collected a company of base fel- 
lows, and placing over them one Euthyonius, surnamed Casnes, whom he also 
appointed the superintendent of his church, admitted into the sacred service 
diabolical dances, exclamations of ribaldry, and ballads borrowed from the 
streets and brothels.' Two hundred years after this, Balsamon, patriarch of 
Alexandria, complains of the gross abominations committed by the priests at 
Christmas, and other festivals, even in the great church at Constantinople ; and 
that the clergy on certain holidays personated a variety of feigned characters, 
and even entered the choir in military habits, and other enormous disguises. In 
return he forbids the professed players to appear on the stage in the habit of 
monks. — fVarton, ii. 369. 

In 1590, the monks and bishops made a memorable procession at Paris, Rose, 
the bishop of Senlis, and the prior of the charter-house, were in the van as 
captains ; each of them had a cross ia the left hand, and a halberd in the right, 
representing, as they said, the Maccabees, who were the leaders of God's people. 
After them all the monks of the mendicant orders, as Capuchins, Feuillans, 
Minims, &c. were drawn up four and four. Their robes were tucked up to 
their girdles, the cowl thrown back upon their shoulders, a helmet on their 
backs ; some carrying shields and daggers, some partisans, and others carabines, 
and such like rusty arms, fit for nothing but to make one laugh. The oldest 
marched first, putting on, as well as they could, the airs and motions of com- 
manding officers. The young followed, every now and then firing their pieces, to 
shew how well they understood the soldiers' exercise. Hamilton, the curate of 
St. Cosme, was Serjeant, and kept them in their ranks. The merriest figure 
was one Feuillant, a little man, who because he was lame, would not keep in 
any rank, but was sometimes at the head, sometimes at the tail, with a great 
two handed sword, which he flourished about to hide the limp in his gait. This 
troop marched along the streets with an affected gravity, stopping from time 
to time, and mixing by intervals anthems and hymns, with the salvos of their 
fire-arms. Of this procession, representing the church militant, there is a 
print in Montfaucoa. — Mezerai 9. (Conf. bet. Anc. and Mod. Ceremonies, 
p. 97.) 



159 

proper suite of ecclesiastics, and one of their ridiculous ceremonies 
was to shave the precentor of Fools upon a stage erected before 
the church in the presence of the populace, who were amused 
during the operation by his lewd and vulgar discourses accompa- 
nied by actions equally reprehensible. They were mostly attired 
in the ridiculous dresses of pantomime players and buffoons, and 
so habited entered the church, and performed the service accom- 
panied by crowds of laity in masks, representing monsters, or with 
their faces smutted to excite fear or laughter, as occasion might 
require. Some of them personated females and practised wanton 
devices. During divine service they sung indecent songs in the 
choir, ate rich puddings on the corner of the altar, played at dice 
upon it by the side of the priest while he celebrated mass, incensed 
it with smoke from old burnt shoes, and ran leaping all over the 
church. The Bishop or Pope of Fools performed the service 
habited in pontifical garments, and gave his benediction ; when it 
was concluded, he was seated in an open carriage, and drawn 
about to the different parts of the town followed by a large train 
of clergy and laymen, and a cart filled with filth, which they threw 
upon the populace assembled to see the procession. These licen- 
tious festivities were called the December Liberties. * They were 

* The RomanSy and many other nations made superstitious processions, and it 
is from them, no doubt, that the custom came to us. For in the pomp of our 
processions it is customary to rank in the first place something to make an ap- 
pearance, as some files of soldiers, infantry and cavalry, or some burlesque 
ridiculous contrivance of a figure, with a great gaping mou4h, and snapping its 
teeth to frighten folks. Some other pieces of merriment often precede, as a 
representation of the prophets; one acts David, another SoZomow, and others 
are disguised like queens, and they cause children with wings to sing.— F«?. 
Virg. c. xi. p. 114. (Conf. bet. Anc. and Mod. Ceremonies, p. 89.) 

The heathen were delighted with the festivals of their gods, and unwilling to 
part with those delights ; and therefore Gregory (Thaumaturgus, who died in 
265, and was bishop of Neocaesarea) to facilitate their conversion, instituted 
annual festivals to the saints and martyrs. Hence it came to pass, that for ex- 
ploding the festivals of the heathens, the principal festivals of the Christians 
succeeded in their room; as the keeping of Christmas with joy and feasting, and 
playing and sports, in the room of the Bacchanalia and Saturnalia ; the celebrating 
of May-day with flowers, in the room of the Floralia; and the keeping of festivals 



160 

always held at Christmas time, or near to it, but not confined to 
one particular day, and seem to have lasted through the chief part 
of January. When the ceremony took place upon St. Stephen's 
day, they said as part of the mass, a burlesque composition, called 
the Fool's prose, and upon the festival of St. John the Evange- 
list, they had another arrangement of ludicrous songs, called, the 
Prose of the Ox.* 

The Feast of the Ass, as it was anciently celebrated in France, 
almost entirely consisted of dramatic show. It was instituted in 
honour of Balaam's Ass, and at one of them the clergy walked 
on Christmas day in procession, habited to represent the prophets 



to the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, and divers of the Apostles, in the room 
of the solemnities *at the entrance of the sun into the signs of the zodiac, in the 
old Julian Calendar. — Sir Isaac Newton on Daniel^ p. 204. 

The feast of St. Peter ad vincula was instituted to supersede a splendid Pagan 
festival, celebrated every year on that day, to commemorate the victory of 
Augustus over Antony at Actium. We may infer the inevitable corruption of 
practical Christianity in the middle ages, from the obstinate attachment of the 
converted barbarians to their ancient Pagan customs, and the allowed continu- 
ance of many by the catholic clergy. Boniface complained of German priests, 
who would continue, although Christians, to sacrifice bulls and goats to the hea- 
then idols. — Mr, Turner's Hist, of Engl. vol. ii. p. 340. 

A letter from Pope Gregory the Great, in the sixth century, to the Abbot 
Mellitus, then going to Britain, desires him to tell Augustine, the first arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, that after mature deliberation on the affair of the Eng- 
lish, he \7as of optoion that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to 
be destroyed, but that the idols should. He further orders the temples to be 
sprinkled with holy water, and relics to be placed in them ; and, because our 
ancestors sacrificed oxen in their pagan worship, he directs the object of the 
sacrifice to be exchanged, and permits them to build huts of the boughs of trees 
about the temples so transformed into churches, on the day of the dedication, or 
nativities of the martyrs whose relics they contain, and there to kill the cattle, 
and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting. — Bede's EccL Hist, of Engl, 
8vo. p. 94. 

* Not long ago, in the metropolis itself, it was usual to bring up a fat buck to 
the altar of St. Paul's, with hunters horns blowing, &c. in the middle of divine 
service. For on this very spot, or near it, there formerly stood a temple of 
Diana.' — Conform.bet. /inc. and Mod. Ceremonies, Pref. p. xxc w. 

a Mr. Sharon Turner's Hist, of England, 4to. vol, ii. p. 367, Strutt's Sports, 
p. 303. 



161 

and others. Moses appeared in an alb and cope, with a long 
beard and rod. David had a green vestment. Balaam, with an 
immense pair of spurs, rode on a wooden ass, which inclosed a 
speaker. There were also six Jews, and six Gentiles. Among 
other characters, the poet Virgil was introduced singing monkish 
rhymes, as a Gentile prophet, and a translator of the sybilline 
oracles. They thus moved in procession through the body of 
the church chanting versicles, and conversing in character on the 
nativity and kingdom of Christ, till they came into the choir.* The 
same ceremony, as it was performed at the same season, in the 
cathedral church of Rouen, commenced with a procession in 
which the clergy represented the prophets of the Old Testament 
who foretold the birth of Christ ; then followed Balaam mounted 
on his ass, Zachariah, Elizabeth, John the Baptist, the sybil 
Erythree, Simeon, Virgil, Nebuchadnezzar, and the three children 
in the furnace. After the procession entered the cathedral, several 
groups of persons performed the part of Jews and Gentiles, to 
whom the choristers addressed speeches ; afterwards they called on 
the prophets one by one, who came forward successively and de- 
livered a passage relative to the Messiah. The other characters 
advanced to occupy their proper situations, and reply in certain 
verses to the demands of the choristers. They performed the 
miracle of the Furnace; Nebuchadnezzar spoke, the sybil ap- 
peared at the last, and then an anthem was sung, which concluded 
the ceremony. ^ 

The Feast of the Ass, anciently celebrated at Beauvais every 
year on the 14th of January, commemorated the flight of the 
Virgin into Egypt with the infant Jesus. To represent the Virgin, 
the most beautiful girl in the city, with a pretty child in her arms, 
was placed on an ass richly caparisoned. Thus mounted she pre- 
ceded the Bishop and his clergy, and they all went in grand pro- 
cession from the cathedral to the parish church of St. Stephen. 
On entering the chancel, they ranged themselves on the right side 

a WartOD, vo]. i. p. Si48. 
b Dictiou. Univ. Hist, et Crit. des Moeurs, 1772, 8vo. Paris, ton), i, p. 50. 



162 

of the altar ; the mass immediately commenced, and the Introit, 
Lord have mercy upon us, Gloria Patrij the Creed, and other 
parts of the service were terminated by the burden of Hin-Han, 
Hin-Han, in imitation of the braying of an ass : the officiating 
priest, instead of saying Ita Missa est at the end of the mass, 
concluded by singing three times Hin-Han^ Hin-Han^ Hiti- 
Han, and during the performance hymns were sung in praise of 
the Ass."" 

From the Missal composed for the service of the Feast of the 
Ass, by an archbishop of Sens, who died in 1222, M. Millin has 
given an account of the ceremony to the following effect. On the 
eve of the day appointed for the celebration before vespers, the 



» The Ass figures in Naogeorgus's description of the ceremonies on Palm Sun- 
day in England : from tlie versification of Barnaby Googe's translation (in 
Brand, vol. i. p. 107.) the following particulars are extracted. On Palm Sun- 
day, the anniversary festival of Christ's riding into Jerusalem, a wooden aas, 
with an image on it, being placed on a platform, with wheels, and drest up, was 
drawn by the people bearing boughs and branches of palm to the church-door. 
On its arrival there, the priest, blessing the branches, converted them into as- 
surances for a year against loss or damage by tempest j and then, prostrating 
himself before the ass, he lay on his face till another priest roused him by the ap- 
plication of a rod of the largest size. On his rising, two others fell on their faces, 
and sang in that position ; afterwards standing and pointing at the figure on the 
ass, they declared that it was he, who, having come to redeem the faithful, 
they had strewed olive boughs before as he rode. This ended, the ass with the 
figure being moved along, the people cast branches upon both, and it was drawn 
into the church in procession, the priests going before ; the people followed, 
struggling for the holy boughs over which the pageant had past. The whole 
being concluded, the boys went to the church in the afternoon, and bargained 
with the sexton for the use of the ass, which they drew through the streets, 
singing verses and gathering money, bread and eggs, from the people. 

< Upon Palme Sondaye they play the foles sadely, drawuige after Jhem an 
asse in a rope, when they be not moche distant from the woden asse that they 
drawe.' — Pre/, to A Dialoge, &c. n. d., a rare work mentioned in Ames. — 
Brand, vol. i. p. lOr. 

In the west of England there is a vulgar notion that the straight stripe down 
the shoulders of the ass, intersected by the long one from the neck to the tail, 
is a cross of honour conferred upon him by Christ, and that before he rode upon 
him the ass was not so distinguished. 



163 

clergy went in procession to the door of the cathedral, where two 
choristers sung in a minor key, or rather with squeaking voices — 

Lux hodie, lux letitiae, me judice, tristis 
Quisquis erit, removendus erit, solemnibus istis 
Sicut hodie, procul invidias, procul omnia moesta 
Laeta volnnt, qnicumque celibret asinaria festa. 

Light to day, the light of joy — I banish every sorrow; 
Wherever found, be it expelled from our solemnities to-morrow. 
Away be strife and grief and care, from every anxious breast, 
And all be joy and glee in those who keep the Ass's Feast. 

The anthem being concluded, two canons were deputed to 
fetch the Ass to the table, where the great chanter sat, to read the 
order of the ceremonies, and the names of those who were to 
assist in them. The animal clad with precious priestly ornaments, 
was solemnly conducted to the middle of the choir, during which 
procession, a hymn in praise of the ass, was sung in a major key. 
Its first and last stanzas have been thus Englished : 

From the country of the East 
Came this strong and handsome beast, 
This able Ass — beyond compare, 
Heavy loads and packs to bear. 

Huzza, Seignor Ass, Huzza! 

Amen ! bray, most honour'd xlss, 
Sated now with grain and grass : 
Amen repeat. Amen reply, 
And disregard antiquity. 

Huzza, Seignor Ass, Huzza ! 



o 



The original hymn was in the following words :- 

RIENTI5 partibus, Lentus erat pedibus, 

Adventavit Asinas, Nisi foret baculus. 



Pulcher et fortissimus, Et eum in clunibus, 

Sarcinis aptissimus. Pungeret aculeus. 

,_ „. . , Hezj Sire Asne, car chantez. Sec. 

HeZf Sire Asncj car chantez, 

Belle Bouche rechinez, Ecce magnis auribus, 

Vous aurez dufoin assez, Subjugalis filius, 

Et de Vavoine a plantez. Asinus egregius 

Asinorum Dominus. 

Hez, Sire Asne, car chanteZf ifc. 



164 



Hie in colibus Sicheni, 
Jam nutritus sab rubera ; 
Transiit per Jordanem, 
Saliit in Bethlehem. 

Hezj Sire Asne, car chantez, ^c. 



Dum trahit vehicula 
Mult^ cum carcinula, 
mills mandibula 
Dura terit pabiila. 

Hez, Sire Asne^ car chanteZf fyc. 

Cum aristis hordeum, 
Comedit et carduiim, 
Triticum a pale^, 
Segregat in area. 

Hez, Sire Asne, car chantez, Sfc. 



(Ici on flechissait le genou.) 



Saltu vincit hinnulos 
Damas et capreolos, 
Super dromedaries, 
Velox Madianeos. 

Hez, Sire Asne, car chantez, ^c, 

Aurum de Arabia, 
Thus et rayrrham de SabS, 
Tulit in Ecclesia, 
Virtus Asinaria. 

Hez, Sire Asne, car chantez, Sfe. 

Amen, dicas, Asine, 
Jam satur de graraine, 
Amen, amen itera, 
Aspernata vetera. 

Hez va ! hez va ! hez va I hez I 
Bialx, Sire Asne, car allez. 
Belle Bouche, car chantez a 

The office being in the same style throughout, was sung in the 
most discordant manner possible. The service itself lasted the 
whole of the night, and part of the next day : it was a rhap- 
sody of whatever was sung in the course of the year at the usual 
church festivals, and formed altogether the strangest and most 
ridiculous medley imaginable. When the choristers in this long 
performance were thirsty, wine was unsparingly distributed, and 
the signal for that part of the ceremony was an anthem, commen- 
cing * Conductus ad poculum,' Brought to the glass. On the 
first evening, after vespers, the grand chanter of Sens, preceded 
by an enormous lantern, headed the jolly band in the streets, and 
on a vast theatre prepared for their reception before the church, 
they performed indecorous interludes. To conclude the singing and 



« This hymn is in Du Cange, and the * Dictionnaire des Mceurs, 



165 



dancing, a pail of water was thrown on the head of the grand 
chanter, and they returned to the church, to begin the morning 
office. On that occasion they were sluiced on their naked bodies 
with pailfuls of water. At the respective divisions of the service, the 
ass was supplied with drink and provender. In the middle of it, 
a signal was given by an anthem, beginning, ' Conductus ad ludos,' 
Brought to pla^j and the ass being conducted into the nave of 
the church, the people mixed with the clergy, danced round him, 
and strove to imitate his braving.* When the dancinsj was over, 
the ass was carried back into the choir, where the clergy con- 
cluded the service. The vespers on the second day were ended 
with an invitation to dinner, in the form of an anthem like the 
rest, ' Conductus ad prandium,' Brought to dinner ; and the 
festival terminated by a repetition of similar theatricals to those 
which had taken place the day before. 5 

Francis Douce, Esq. Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, 
submitted a paper to that body on the 10th of May, 1804, con- 
cerning these ceremonies; wherein he states, that the Feast of 
Calends, which arose out of the Roman Saturnalia, resembled, in 
a great degree, the excesses of a modern carnival, and that the arch- 
bishops and bishops degraded themselves by joining in these sports 
with the inferior clergy. An illumination in the celebrated Bed- 
ford Missal, representing several men feasting in a church-yard, 
is noticed by Mr. Douce, as referring to an ancient Festival on 
the 21st of February, called the Feralia, or Feast of the Dead, 
instituted by Numa in honour of the manes, and sometimes called 
Parentalia. This gentleman supposes that many of the grotesque 
figures in the illuminated religious manuscripts, generally, but 
erroneously, called missals, are allusive to these subjects. The 
Feast of Fools, he says, soon made its way into England, but its vest- 

* Menestrier says, that Spain has preserved in the church and in solemn pro- 
cessions the use of dancing, and has theatrical representations made expressly 
for great festivals. He saw on Easter Sunday in some churches of France, the 
canons take the choristers by the hand, and dance in the choir while festal 
Lymns were sung. — Burnetfs Hist, of Musky vol. ii. p. 28. 
'' Mr. Turner's Hist, of England, vol. ii. p. S67. 

X 



166 

iges here are by no means so numerous as among our neighbours. 
The earliest mention of it traced by Mr. Douce, is under the . 
reign of Henry IV., and he conceives it probable that it was 
abolished about the end of the fourteenth century. Numerous 
imitations of it arose in various places, and on different occasions. 
Besides the Feast of the Ass, there were the election of an abbe 
des conards or cornards, of an abbe des esclaffards, of an abbe 
de malgouverne, whence our abbot, or lord of misrule, of a prince 
des sots, sometimes called mere yb//e, or folie, of a prince de 
plaisance, a prince de Vestrille, of a prevot des etourdis ; a roi 
des ribands, and some others of a similar nature. Mr. Douce 
describes a girdle, which tradition reports to have been worn by 
the abbot of fools, in the Cathedral of Dijon, on his election into 
office. From the style of its sculpture, he conceives it to belong 
to the fourteenth century. It consists of thirty-five square pieces 
of wood so contrived as to let into each other, by which means it 
easily assumes a circular form. On these are carved a variety of 
ludicrous and grotesque figures, consisting of fools, tumblers, 
huntsmen, and animals, with others that, from their licentiousness, 
do not admit of a particular description. They bear, on the 
whole, a very striking similitude to the sculptures on the seats of 
the stalls in our cathedrals and monastic buildings, which, Mr. 
Douce is of opinion, were likewise executed in ridicule of the 
clergy in general, but more particularly of the friars, or, that they 
may, in some instances at least, refer to the mockeries that were 
practised in celebrating the Feast of Fools.* 

The Boy Bishop was another pastime of the church. In Fran- 
conia, the scholars on St. Nicholas day used to elect one of their 
number to play the Boy Bishop, and two others for his deacons. 
He was escorted to church, with his mitre on, by the other boys in 
solemn procession, where he presided at the worship, and after- 
wards he and his deacons went about singing from door to door 
and collecting money; not begging alms, but demanding it as his 
subsidy. This was a very ancient practice, for, three centuries 

a Archaologia, vol. xv. p. 225. 



167 

before, namely, in 1274, the Council of Strasburg prohibited the 
choosing of the Boi/ Bishop ; though so late as Hospinian, who 
wrote in the seventeenth century, it was customary at schools de- 
dicated to Pope Gregory the Great, who was also patron of scho- 
lars, for one of the boys to be the representative of Gregory on 
the occasion, and act as Bishop, with certain companions as his 
clergy .a But as the Boy Bishop in England will be mentioned 
hereafter, further notice is deferred until then. 

These were the principal mock festivals of the clergy, yet so 
late as in 1645, a pupil of Gassendi, writing to his master what 
he himself witnessed at Aix, on the feast of the Innocents, says, 
' 1 have seen, in some monasteries in this province, extravagan- 
cies solemnized, which the Pagans would not have practised. 
Neither the clergy nor the guardians, indeed, go to the choir on 
this day, but all is given up to the lay-brethren ; the cabbage-cut- 
ters, the errand-boys, the cooks and scullions, the gardeners ; in a 
word, all the menials fill their places in the church, and insist that 
they perform the offices proper for th<^ day. They dress them- 
selves with all the sacerdotal ornaments, but torn to rags, or wear 
them inside out ; they hold in their hands the books reversed or 
sideways, which they pretend to read with large spectacles with- 
out glasses, and to which they fix the shells of scooped oranges, 
which renders them so hideous, that one must have seen these 
madmen to form a notion of their appearance ; particularly while 
dangling the censers, they keep shaking them in derision, and let- 
ting the ashes fly about their heads and faces, one against the 
other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns, nor psalms, nor 
masses ; but mumble a certain gibberish as shrill and squeaking 
as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense -verses 
they chaunt are singularly barbarous : 

Haec est clara dies, claranim clara dierum, 
Haec est festa dies, festarum fesla dierum > 



a Brand, vol. i. p. 324. 

^ Thiers, Traite des Jeux, p. 449 ; see D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, 
vol. iii. p. 259. 



l68 

To ibese sports the clergy added the acting of Mysteries^ or 
plays representing the miraculous acts of saints, circumstances 
from apocryphal story, and subjects from the Old and New Tes- 
tament. There are different opinions as to the religious class by 
whom they were introduced into Europe, though it seems reason- 
able to suppose that they were adopted by the Italians in the 
depth of the dark ages from the spiritual dramas of the Apolli- 
narii, father and son, and Gregory Nazianzen ;'* but however that 

* Warton, vol. ii. p. 369. Gregory Nazianzen, is said by Cardinal John de 
Medicis, to have corrupted the purity of the Greek tongue, and by that means 
to have occasioned the barbarisms of Latin divinity. On the authority of De- 
metrius Chalcondylas, who flourished in the fifteenth century, he relates that 
the Greek clergy obtained leave from the Constantinopolitan emperor, to burn 
many ancient Greek poems, and that so the plays of Menander, Diphdus, Apol- 
lodorus, Philemon and Alexis, and the verses of Sappho, Erinna, Anacreon, 
Mimnermus, Bion, Alcman, and Alcaeus, were lost. Tlieir place being supplied 
by the poems of Gregory Nazianaen, which though exciting to greater religious 
zeal, yet do not teach the true propriety and elegance of the Greek language.— 
Bmjle. Diet, art, Nazianzen. 

Slenestrier ascribes the Mysteries to the practices of the religious. He says, 
* It is certain, that pilgrimages introduced these devout representations. Tliose, 
who returned from Jerusalem and the Holy Land, from St. James of Cora- 
postella, St. Baume of Provence, St. Reine, Mount St. Michael, Notre 
Dame dn Pay, and other places of piety, composed songs on their travels, mix- 
ing with them a recital of the life and death of the Sou of God, or of the last 
judgment, after a gross manner, but which the singing and simplicity of the 
times seem to render pathetic : they sung the miracles of saints, their martyr- 
dom, and certain fables, to which the credulity of the people gave the name 
of visions and apparitions. These pilgrims, who went in companies, and who 
took their stands in streets, and public places, where they sung with their 
staves in their hands, and their hats and mantles covered with shells, and 
painted images of divers colours, formed a kind of spectacle, which pleased, 
and excited the piety of some citizens of Paris, to raise a fund for purchasing 
a proper place to erect a theatre, on which to represent these mysteries on holy 
days, as well for the instruction of the people, as their diversion. Italy had 
public theatres for the representation of these mysteries; one of them I saw at 
Veletri, in the road from Rome to Naples, in a public place, where it is not 
forty years since they left off to represent the mysteries of the life of the Son 
of God. These pious spectacles appeared so fine in those ignorant ages, that 
they made them the principal ornaments of the reception of princes, when they 
made their entry into cities j and as they sung a Christmas carol, instead of the 



169 

may be, there is no room for surprise that all writers concur iii 
attributing the performance of these mysteries to that body who 
were the authors of the Feast of Fools and the Feast of the Ass. 

As mysteries arose with Gregory Nazianzen, it is not likely 
that his example as a father of the church should be wholly lost 
sight of as soon as he had succeeded in destroying the perform- 
ance of the ancient Greek plays ; yet English writers do not ap- 
pear to have traced sacred representations in a dramatic form 
until many centuries after Gregory Nazianzen's death. No in- 
ference, however, is deducible from that circumstance against 
the likelihood of their existence nearer to his time. Dramatic 
historians seldom dig into ecclesiastical lore for materials, and the 
learned few have not much relish for inquiries subordinate to 
their own. 

Dr. Burney, in hi« researches into the history of music, ascer- 
tained that the first dramatic representation in Italy was a spiritual 
comedy, performed at Padua in 1243. In 1554, were printed at 
Rome, the statutes of a Company instituted in that city in 1264, 
whose chief employment was to represent the sufferings of Christ 
in passion week. 

In 1298, the passion was played at Friuli; and the same 
year, the clergy of Civita Vecchia, on the feast of Pentecost, 
and the two following holidays, performed the play of Christ, 
that is of his passion, resurrection, ascension, judgment, and 
the mission of the Holy Ghost; and again in 1304, they acted 
the creation of Adam and Eve, the annunciation of the Virgin 
Mary, the birth of Christ, and other subjects of sacred his- 
tory.^ The Rev. Mr. Croft, and the Hon. Topham Beauclerc, 



cries of Long live the King, they represented in the streets the good Samaritan, 
the wicked rich man, the Passion of Jesus Christ, and several other Mysteries, at 
the reception of our kings. The psalms and prose devotions of the church were 
the opera of those times. They walked in procession before those princes with 
the banners of the churches, and sung to their praise hymns composed of se- 
veral passages of Scripture, tacked together, to make allusions to the principal 
actions of their reigns.— MenestrieT,^—(Bayle, Diet* art. Chocquet.) 
a Wartoii, vol. i. p. 250. 



170 

collected a great number of Italian mysteries ; and at the sale of 
their libraries, Dr. Burney purchased many of the most ancient, 
which he speaks of as being evidently much earlier than the dis- 
covery of printing, from the gross manner in which the subjects 
are treated, the coarseness of the dialogue, and the ridiculous 
situation into which the most sacred persons and things are thrown.* 
In 1313, Philip the Fair gave the most sumptuous entertain- 
ment at Paris ever remembered in that city. Edward II. and 
his Queen Isabella, crossed over from England with a large re- 
tinue of nobihty, and partook of the magnificent festivities. The 
pomp and profusion of the banquettings, the variety of the amuse- 
ments, and the splendour of the costume were unsurpassed. On 
each of the eight days the princes and nobles changed their dresses 
three times ; while the people were sometimes entertained with 
representations of the Glory of the blessed, at other times with 
the Torments of the damned, and with various other spectacles, 
especially the Procession of Reynard the Fox,^ In 1402, by an 
edict of Charles VI. dated Dec. 4th, the mystery of the concep- 
tion, passion, and resurrection of Christ, was performed at St. 
Maur, about five miles from Paris. It was written by Jean 
Michel, who died in J 447. At the Council of Constance, in the 
year 1417, the English fathers gave a mystery of the massacre of 
the Holy Innocents. In this play a low buffoon was introduced, 
desiring of his lord to be dubbed a knight, that he might be pro- 
perly qualified to go on the adventure of killing the mothers of 
the children of Bethlehem, which was treated with the most ridi- 
culous levity. The good women of Bethlehem attacked the 
knight-errant with their spinning-wheels, broke his head with their 
distaffs, abused him as a coward and a disgrace to chivalry, and 
sent him home to Herod as a recreant champion, with much ig- 
nominy.'' Le Mistere de la Passion de Notre Seigneur, done to 
the life, as the same is figured round the cc^ur of Notre Dame, at 
Paris, was performed on the entrance of the kings of France and 



a Burney's Hist, of Music, vol. iii. p. 83. 
•> Histoire de Paris, fol. p. 523. c Warton, i. 242. 



171 

England into tliat capital, on December 1, 1420, in the street 
Kalende^ before the palace, upon a raised scaffolding about one 
hundred paces in length, reaching from the said street Kalende 
to the wall of the palace.* Le Mistere de la Passion de Saint 
George y was represented by the Parisians in the Hotel de 
Nelle, during the festival of the Pentecost, being the last day 
of May, in order to shew their love to the King of England, his 
queen, and all the nobles of the said country. On the 8th of 
September, 1424, Le Mistere da vieil Testament et du nouvel, 
was performed by the youths of Paris, placed like statues against 
a wall, without speech or sign, at the entrance into Paris, of John 
Duke of Bedford, Regent of France, Le Mistere depuis la 
conception Notre Damejusque Joseph la mena en Egipte ; was 
performed on a scaffolding before the Trinity, reaching from be- 
yond St. Saviours' to the end of the street called ErnetaL This 
was at the entrance of Henry VI. of England into Paris as king 
of France, on the first Sunday of Advent, being December the 
2nd, 1431. Vengeance de la Mort de N. S, J. C. et destruc- 
tion de la ville de Jerusalem par V Empereur Vespasian et Titus 
was performed, presented before Charles VIII.'' In I486, the 
mysteries of the nativity, passion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
were acted at Poictiers, with great magnificence.*^ 



a Printed in 4to. 

•* The printed copies of this and the three preceduig masteries specify the 
time of their representation. 

« Black letter, folio, 1491. Bayle Diet. art. Bouchet. 

There are two French Mysteries, entitled, 1. Le Jeu et Mystere de la Sainte 
Hostie, mis par personnaiges, en rime Fran^oise. Paris, Jelan BoufonSf black 
letter, t6mo. 2nd. Le Mystere de la Sainte Hostie, black letter, 12mo. played 
by twenty-six persons. After tlie title page are these four lines, 

Li sez ce fait, grand et petit, 
Comment nn faux et maudit Juif, 
Lapida moult crnellement 
De I'Autel le tres Saint Sacremeut. 

It appears that in almost every natiou in Europe the silly Jews have perpe- 
trated cruelties on feeling wafers and conscious crucifixes. In the present 



17% 

In the Royal Library of Paris, No. 4350, is Le Mystere de 
la passion Jesus Christ ; Paris, printed by Antoine Verard, 1490, 
folio. This is a fine copy on vellum with every page richly il- 
luminated, and containing a MS. note in French, purporting to 
be an extract from an old Chronicle, entitled, ' Histoire de Metz 
veritable,' whence it appears that its performance was attended 
hy many foreign lords and ladies whose names are specified, and 
that there were lanthorns placed in the windows during the whole 
time of the plays : but the most curious part of the MS. note is, 
that, ' in the year 1437, on the 3rd of July was represented the 
game or play, de la Passion, N, S. in the plain of Veximiel, 



year, 1822, I compiled an account of the Mira«ulous Host tortured by the 
Jew at Paris, under the reign of Philip the Fair in 1290. In the preface 
to that pamphlet it is affirmed that the people of Brussels every year, on the 
anniversary of St. Hubert the patron of dogs, get bread, with attestations 
signed by the magistrates, certifying that it has been consecrated by the priest, 
and that they give every dog in Brussels this holy bread, to save him from dis- 
temper throughout the year. As this is the only opportunity I shall have of re- 
moving some doubts as to the accuracy of my statement, I subjoin the copy of 
an original certificate attached to the bread consecrated and sold for the 
dogs last year. The original is in my possession : the practice itself can be 
verified by any resident at Brussels. 

(Copy.) 
Je sous sign e, declare avoir beniet touch^ a I'Etole miraculeuse du glo- 
rieuse Saint Hubert, Ap6tre des Ardennes, les bagues, chapelets, m6dailles, 
croix, cceurs, christs, colliers, boucles d'orielles, petits livres, petits cornets de 
devotion, et autres beatilles relatives a la pieuse confiance des fideles a le 
grand Saint, dont est porteuse Marie Joseph Potier, Spouse de Cornelis 
Joseph, Mar^chal, domicili^e a Bruxelles. 

Votum facio R'dis Confratribus has visuris haec Numismata 
ver^ benedicta et miraculosaB Stolas contactu Lustrata ut 
supra, etc. 

DeUvr6 a St. Hubert, le 28 Janvier, 1821. 
L. S. V. Thome Aumonier de I'Eglise du grand St. Hubert. 

Vu, par e Bourguemestre President de la R^gence de la Ville 
de Saint Hubert, pour Legalisation de la Signature de Mon- 
sieur Thome, sis dessus Vicaire et Aumonier de I'Eglise du 
Grand Saint Hubert. 
L. S. Saint Hubert, le 28 Janvier, 1821. 

N. Evitmet. 



173 

when the park was arranged in a very noble manner, for there 
were nine ranges of seats in height rising by degrees ; all around 
and behind were great and long seats for the lords and ladies. To 
represent God was the Lord Nicolle, Lord of Neufchatel, in 
Lorraine, who was curate of St. Victor of Metz ; he was nigh 
dead upon the cross if he had not been assisted, and it was deter- 
mined that another priest should be placed on the cross to coun- 
terfeit the personage of the crucifixion for that day ; but on the 
following day the said curate of St. Victor counterfeited the re- 
surrection, and performed his part very highly during the play. 
Another priest, who was called Messire Jean de Nicey, and was 
chaplain of Metrange, played Judas, and was nearly dead while 
hanging, for his heart failed him, wherefore he was very quickly 
unhung and carried off: and there the Mouth of Hell was very 
well done ; for it opened and shut when the devils required to 
enter and come out, and had two large eyes of steel."^ It further 
appears from the MS. note that they played on the 17th of Septem- 
ber of the same year in the same place, La Fengeance de N, S, 
J, C/ and that ' the same Lord Nicolle was Titus in la Veng^^ 
ancey who nearly lost his life in la Passion, 

On the 27th of May, 1509, was performed at Romans, in 
Dauphiny, before the Cordeliers' church, the Mystery of the 

a This Mouth of Hell is figured in Hearne's print opposite p. 138 of the pre- 
sent work. Hell is often shown in this way at the present time. It is so de- 
signed in a wood cut to the Christmas carol of * Dives and Lazarus.' A sick 
man in a wig lies on a bed, with a clergyman praying beside him ; the indis- 
posed person is Dives, for whom the Mouth of Hell is wide open in a lower cor- 
ner of the room, while Lazarus reposes in Abraham's bosom in the corner above. 
As it is by no means an uncommon form, so it appears to have been conceived 
in an early age. The fine east window of York Cathedral, on which is painted 
almost the whole history ef the Bible, contains the final doom of the wicked j 
and hell is this enormous mouth. There is also a representation of hell as 
a monstrous mouth vomiting forth flames and serpents, with two figures walk- 
ing into it, trampling over the naked body of a third lying prostrate, on an an- 
cient bas relief in the west front of Lincoln Cathedral, which was founded in 
1088. Gough conjectures the workmanship to be more ancient than the cathe- 
dral, and thinks it was * brought from some old church and placed in this 
front when it was first built.' It is engraved in his Cawrfe/?, vol. ii. p. 363. 

Y 



174 

Three Dons. In this religious play, which lasted three days, there 
are emissaries who undertake very long journeys, and must come 
back before the play can be ended. The scene, besmeared with 
the blood of the three martyrs, the Dons, is sometimes at Rome, 
sometimes at Vienna, soon after at Lyons, and at other times in 
the Alps. The stage constantly represents hell and paradise; 
and Europe, Asia, and Africa, are cantoned in three towers. 
Some metaphysical beings are most curiously personified. Dame 
Silence, for instance, speaks the prologue ; Human Succour, 
Divine Grace, and Divine Comfort, are the supporters of the 
heroes and heroines of the piece, w4iile Hell exhibits monsters and 
devils, to frighten the audience. They are constantly abusing 
Proserpine, who is introduced with all the trappings of Tartarean 
pomp into this performance, where there are no less than ninety- 
two dramatis persons?, among whom are the Virgin and God the 
Father.^ 

The story of Le Mystere du Chevalier qui donne sa Femme 
au Diable, played by ten persons in 1505,^ is of a dissipated 
knight reduced by his profligacy to distress and wickedness. In 
his misfortunes the devil appears and proposes to make him richer 
than ever if he will assign his wife that the devil may have her in 
seven years. After some discussion the knight consents, his pro- 
mise is written out, and he signs it with his blood. The seducer 
then stipulates that his victim shall deny his God ; the knight 
stoutly resists for a time, but in the end the devil gains his point, 
and emboldened by success ventures to propose that the knight 
shall deny the Virgin Mary. This, however, being a still greater 
sin, he refuses to commit it with the utmost indignity and vehem- 
ence, and the devil walks off baffled. At the end of seven year^, 
the promise being due, the devil presents it to the knight, who, 
considering it a debt of honour, prepares to discharge it im- 
mediately. He orders his wife to follow him to a certain spot, 
but on their way she perceives a church, which after obtaining 



Geiieral Evening Post^ Sept. 29, 1787, from a MS. at Romans. 
^ Black letter, i2mo. 



175 

tier husband's permission she enters, for the purpose of offer- 
ing her devotion; while thus engaged the "Virgin Mary, recol- 
lecting the knight's unsullied allegiance to her, assumes tlie sem- 
blance of his wife, and in that character joins him. The moment 
that they both appear before the devil he perceives who he has to 
deal with, and upbraids the unconscious knight for attempting to 
deceive him. The knight protests his ignorance and astonish- 
ment, which the Virgin corroborates by telling the devil that it 
was her own plan for the rescue of two souls from his power, and 
she orders him to give up the knight's promise. He of course 
obeys so high an authority, and runs off in great terror. The 
Virgin exhorts the knight to better conduct in future, restores his 
wife to him, and the piece concludes. 

In the reign of Francis I., 1541, the performance of a grand 
Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles^ was proclaimed with great 
solemnity, and acted at Paris for many successive days before the 
nobility, clergy, and a large assemblage in the Hotel de Flandres. 
These plays written in French rhime by the Brothers Greban, 
were printed in 2 vols, folio, black letter, under letters patent of 
the king to William Aiabat, a merchant of Bourges, The dra- 
matis personae were, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the 
Virgin and Joseph, Archangels, Angels, the apostles and disciples, 
Jewish priests. Emperors, Philosophers, Magicians, Lucifer, 
Satan, Belzebub, Belial the attorney-general of hell, Cerberus the 
porter, and a multitude of other celestial, terrestrial, and infernal 
personages, amounting altogether to four hundred and eighty-five 
characters. Though the scenes of these plays were chiefly scrip- 
tural, yet many were from Apocryphal New Testament subjects, 
and the whole exhibition was a strange mixture of sacred and 
profane history. A scene in which the spirit of God descends 
in a cloud upon the Apostles as tongues of fire, directs that, 
' here a noise should be made to imitate thunder resounding 
through paradise.' In the Play of Pentecost, Mary being assem- 
bled with the eleven apostles and the disciples, altogether one 
hundred and eleven persons, the deficiency in the number of the 
apostles through the treachery of Judas, is supplied by Peter 



176 

holding two straws unequally cut between his finger and thumbs 
from which one being drawn, the lot fell upon Mathias. This 
and other scenes which are to be found elsewhere/ may convey 
some idea of the absurdity and grossness exhibited under the go- 
vernment of Francis I. ; yet these plays are enlivened by bold- 
ness of incident, and occasionally there is an unexpected tender- 
ness and delicacy of expression. In the Assumption of the Vir- 
gin, she is thus addressed by one of the celestial messengers sent 
to convey her to heaven — 

Michael. Venez liz et rose deslite, 

Tres precieuse Marguerite, 
Clere resplendissant et belle, 
Venez en la vie eternelle, 
Oa Jesus votre fils habife. 

Mary requests that before they take her soul, her body may be 
laid asleep ; she gently reclines herself and dies ; and virgins 
enter, and wrapping the body in a sheet, carry her away. Ga- 
briel receives her soul, and while he holds it gives directions for 
the funeral. At his desire an anthem of joy is sung for the blessed 
Assumption, and a female then comes in and says, they have 
stripped the body to wash it as in charity bound to do, but such 
is the splendor thereof, and the brilliancy issuing from her limbs, 
that it is not possible human eyes can sustain it. Here they all 
ascend into paradise, and carry the soul of the Virgin with them. 

Bayle calls the Mystere des Actes Apostres, itself ' a very rare 
and uncommon work.' He obtained the loan of a copy from Sir 
Hans Sloane in England, and largely describes the volume. It 
is, however, more curious than rare. From the public instru- 
ments prefixed to the work, and the circumstances related by 
Bayle, it is evident that there was much importance attached 
to these plays ; but it cannot so well be conceived from perusing 
them, as from the remarkable ceremonial of the public procla- 



a Bayle gives long extracts that will surprise most readers, yet he justly ob- 
eerves, that * they are not so grotesque as a multitude of other passages.' — 
Bayh's Diet, art, Chocquet. 



177 

mation for their performance, concerning which he says nothing. 
Probably from the extreme rarity of the curious descriptive tract, 
pubHshed at the time, Bayle had not seen it. On account of its 
scarcity I subjoin a translation of it entire : the words of the pro- 
clamation itself are retained in the original French. 

(TRANSLATION.) 

PpBLic NOTICE AND PROCLAMATION, foT playing the Mystery of the 
Acts of the Apostles, in the Town of Paris, made Thursday the 16th day of 
December, in the yeari5iO,by command of our Lord the KingyTRAHCis the first 
qf this natnCj and his fVorship the Provost of Paris, To the end that every one may 
come to take their characters in the performance of the said Mijstery, Sold at 
Paris in the Street Neufue Nostre Dame, at the Sign of St. John the Baptist, near 
St. Geneviefve des Ardens: in the Shop of Denys Janoe, 154:1. 

Ou the aforesaid day, about eight o'clock in the morning, the people assem- 
bled in the Hotel de Fiaudres, the usual place for the performance of the said 
mystery. That is to say, as well the managers of the said mystery, as officers 
of justice, plebeians, and others having the regulation of these ; rhetoricians, 
and gentlemen of the long robe, as well as of the short. 

First of all went six trumpeters having banners to their pipes and bugles 
bearing the royal arms, amongst which, as for safety, was the usual herald of the 
city accompanied by the sworn crier established to proclaim all judicial procla- 
mations in the said city, all being suitably mounted. 

After these marched a number of Serjeants and archers of the mayor of Paris, 
habited in their hocketoas diapered with silver, wearing the liveries of the 
king and the said mayor. These were to keep order, and to prevent the peo- 
ple pressing in ; the archers were as usual well mounted, as in such cases is re- 
quired. 

Then afterwards marched a number of the city officers and Serjeants, as 
well of the merchants as of the better sort of citizens, habited in their robes — 
then a party with the colours of the city, qui sont les navires d argeH triceulx, all 
well habited. 

Then followed two men appointed to make the said proclamation, dressed in 
black silk velvet with hanging sleeves of three colours, namely, yellow, grey, 
and blue, which is the livery of the aforesaid managers, and these were well 
mounted on fine horses. 

Afterwards cam&the two directors of the said mystery, rhetoricians, one an 
ecclesiastic, the other a layman, both soberly clad and well mounted according 
to their station. 

Then followed after, the four managers of the said mystery, (Hamelinf Pot- 
rain, Louvet, Chollet,) habited in rich laced sarcenets stitched on black velvet, 
well mounted on horses richly caparisoned. 

Also after this train marched four commissaries, inspectors of the Chatelet at 
Paris, moniited on mules with housings, as followers of the said managers. 



178 

In the same order marched a great number of the citizens, merchants and 
other gentlemen of the city, as well in long as short robes, very well mounted 
according to their state and circumstances. 

It should be noticed that at every cross way or public place where they 
made the said proclamation, two of the said managers always joined with the 
two appointed to make the proclamation ; and, after the said six trumpeters 
had sounded three times, and the exhortation of the city herald made on the 
part of the king and the mayor of Paris, the four persons aforesaid made the 
prociamatioa in the manner ^nd form as follows : viz. 

The Announcing and Proclaiming of the undertaking of the said Mystery of the 
Acts of the Apostles J addressed to the Citizens of the said city of Paris. 

Pour ne tumber en da'nable decours 
En nos jours cours aux bibliens disconrs 
Avons recours — le temps nous admoneste 
Pendant que Paix: estant notre secours 
Nous diet je cours es Ruyaulmes es cours 
En plaisant cours faisons quelle sarreste 
La saison preste a souvent chaulve teste 
Et pour ce honneste ceuvre de catholicques 
On faict sea voir a son et crys publicques 
Que dans Paris ung raistere sappreste 
Representant Actes Apostolicques. 

Nostre bon Roy que Dieu garde puissant 
Bien le consent au faict impartissant 
Pouvoir recent : de son auctorit^ 
Dont chascun doibt vonloir que florissant 
Son noble sang des fieurs de Lys yssant 
Soit et croissant en sa fehcite 
Venez, cite, Ville, Universite, 
Tout est cit6 venez gens heroycques 
Graves, censeurs, magistraz, politicques 
Exercez vous au jeu de verite 
Representant Actes Apostolicques. 

L'on y semond, Poetes, Orateurs 
Vrays precepteurs, d'eloquence Amateurs 
Pour directeurs de si saincte entreprise 
Mercuions, et aussi chroniqueurs 
Riches rimeurs des barbares vaincqueurs 
Et des erreurs de langue nial apprise 
L'heure est precise : on se tiendra I'assise 
La sera prise au rapport des tragicques 
L election des plus expers senicques 



179 

En geste et voix au teatre requise 
Representant Acles Apostolicques. 

Vouloir n'avons en ce commencement 

Des batement fors prendre enseignement 

Et jugement sur chascun personnage 

Par les rooUetz bailies entierement 

Et veoir comment Ion jouera proprement 

Si fault ooment : ou teste d'avantage 

Mys ce partage a vostre conseil saige 

Doibt tout courage hors les cneurs paganicques 

Lutlieriens, espritz diabolicques 

Auctoriser ce Mistere et ymage 

Representant Actes Apostolicques. 

Prince puissant sans toy toute rencontre 

Est mal encontre et nostre ceuvre imparfaict 

Nous le prions que par grace se monstre 

Puis le mefFaict de nos chemins oblicques 

Pardonnes nous apres ce jeu parfaict 

Representant Actes Apostolicques. 
End of the Proclamation, 
And for the fixing the day, and the usual place for taking characters in the 
said Mystery, was signified to all, that all should be on the feast of St. Stephen, 
the first holiday in Christmas following, in the hall of the Passion, the accus- 
tomed place for rehearsals and repetitions of the Mysteries played in the said 
city of Paris ; which place, being well hung with rich tapestry chairs and forms, 
is for the reception of all persons ef honest and virtuous report, and of all qua- 
lities therein assisting, as well as a great number of citizens and merchants and 
other persons, as well clergy as laity, in tlie presence of the commissaries and 
officers of Justice appointed and deputed to hear the speeches of each person- 
age ; and these are to make report, according to the merit of their well doing, 
as in such case required, concerning which have a gracious reception; and 
from day to day, every day, so to continue to do, until the perfection of the said 
Mystery.a 

* The French title of this tract is, * Le cry et proclamation publicqne ; pour 
jouer le mistere des Actes des Apostres, en la ville de Paris : faict le Jeudy 
selziesme jour de Decembre Van mil cinq. cens. quarante : Par le commande 
ment dn Roy nostre sire Francoys premier de ce nom : et Monsieur le Prevost 
de Paris affin de venir prendre les roolles pour jouer le diet mistere. — On les 
vend a Paris, etc. 1541.' — 5 leaves 8vo. 

By the Register of the Parliament of Paris, it appears, that on the 19th of 
December, 1541, the Procureur General du Roi on the one part, complained to 
the parliament against Francis Hamelin, (notaire au Chastelet de Paris,) Francis 
Pouldrain, (a tapestry-maker,) Leonard Choblets, (butcher,) and John Louvet, 



180 

It being the purpose of these sheets to give a mere sketch by 
way of*specimen of these performances, I pass at once to a mo- 



(gardener and florist,) the undertakers or managers of the Mystery of the Acts 
of the Apostles, on the other part: For that the defendants having undertaken to 
represent Christ's passion and the Acts of the Apostles, had employed mean and 
illiterate fellows to act, who were not cunning in these matters, and to leng- 
then out the time had interlarded apocryphal matters, and by introducing 
drolls and farces at the beginning and end had made the performance last six 
or seven months ; by means whereof nobody went to church, charity grew 
cold, and immoral excesses were occasioned : Also that at eight or nine o'clock 
in the morning the people left their parish churches to take their seats in the 
play-house, and staid there till five in the afternoon, so that the preachers find- 
ing nobody to hear them left off preaching ; and generally, the parsons of the 
parishes, to have their pastime at the plays, left off the afternoon prayers on 
holidays, or said them alone at noon, and even the king's chaplains in the cha- 
pel of the household did the same, and ran them off post haste to be gone to 
the plays : Farther, that the defendants played for lucre, and raised the price, 
which the first year was twenty and twenty-five crowns, the next thirty and 
thirty-six crowns, and the then present year forty and fifty crowns of the sun 
for every box ; that the plays occasioned junketting and extraordinary expenses 
among the common people ; that the contributions to the poor had diminished 
6000 livres during the six mouths that the plays lasted ; and that notwithstand- 
ing all this, one Roger, a fishseller, with a carpenter, a cobbler, and others, in 
order to get money from the people, had undertaken to act the Old Testament 
next year : wherefore the king's attorney-general had stopped their proceed- 
ings. In answer to this, the counsel on the other side said, he appeared not for 
the company who showed the Acts of the Apostles, but for the new company of 
the Mystery of the Old Testament, in whose behalf he answered, that the king, 
two years before, having seen them act the Mystery of the Passion, and been 
informed how well they played the Acts of the Apostles, and that it was worth 
his while also to see the representation of the Old Testament, Roger being 
present, promised the king to get the Old Testament acted, to which his ma- 
jesty accorded and granted him his letters patent for the purpose. Whereupon 
by these letters patent it appeared to the parliament that the new company in- 
formed the king that what they did was out of devotion, and to edify the peo- 
ple, whereas their quality and circumstances declared that their object was 
gain ; and that in the Old Testament are many things not so proper to be declared 
to the weak and simple people, lest for want of understanding they might be 
drawn in to turn Jews. Therefore the parliament ordered the old company to 
pay to the poor of Paris eight hundred livres out of their profits for playing the 
Acts of the Apostles, and prohibited the new company to play the Old Testament 
till the king's pleasure should be known.— The record at length of these pro- 
ceedings in the original French is at the end of Rymer's View of Tragedy. 



181 

dern writer, who mentioning the theatre at Lisbon, says that 
' Whitaker gives the following account of a piece called the 
Creation of the World :^ he does not tell who ' Whitaker' is, 
nor can I, but the reader is presented with the account just as it is 
cited. — ' On our entrance, we found the theatre nearly filled with 
well dressed people, the front row of boxes full of ladies most 
superbly and tastefully dressed, their hair in braids and ornamented 
with a profusion of diamonds and artificial flowers, without caps ; 
and upon the whole making a very brilliant appearance. The 
band is a good one, and the theatre is worth attending, were it on 
no other account than to hear it. When the curtain drew up we 
saw the eternal Father descend in a cloud with a long white 
beard, with a great number of lights and angels around him : he 
then gave orders for the creation of the world ; over his head 
was drawn an equilateral triangle, as an emblem of the Trinity. 
The next scene presented us with the serpent tempting Eve to 
eat the apple, and his infernal majesty, (the prince of darkness) 
paid the most exaggerated encomiums to her beauty, in order to 
engage her to eat, which as soon as he had done, and persuaded 
Adam to do the same, then came a most terrible storm of thun- 
der and lightning, with a dance of infernal spirits with the devil in 
the midst, dressed in black with scarlet stockings, and a gold- 
laced hat on his head. While the dance was performing, a voice 
from behind the scenes pronounced in a hoarse and solemn man- 
ner, the word * Jesus,' on which the devils immediately vanished 
in a cloud of smoke, Aftfer this, the eternal Father descended in 
great wrath without any attendant, and called for Noah, (who by 
the bye we were much surprised to see, as we did not know before 
that he was at that time in existence, however, appear he did,) 
who when he appeared, the eternal Father told him he was sorry 
he had created such a set of ungrateful scoundrels, and that for 
their wickedness he intended to drown them altogether. Here 
Noah interceded for them, and at last it was agreed that he 
should build an ark, and he was ordered to go to the king's dock- 
yard in Lisbon, and there he would see John Gonzalvez, the 
master builder, for he preferred him to either the French or 

z 



182 

English builders, (this produced great applause). The eternal 
Father then went up to heaven, and Noah to build his ark/'' 
The representation of a mystery called the Damned Soul, at 



* The Portfolio. By J. R. late captain in the Royal Lancashire Militia, and 
formerly of the Royal Fuzileers. Egerton, 181'i, 2 vols. 8vo. vol. i. p. 33, 

In the same work there is an official document, a curious memorial of super- 
stition, which is annexed for the reader's amusement. 

Translation of a Military Certificate in behalf of St. Anthony as the patron of a 

Regiment. 
Don Hercules Antonio Carlos, Lieut., Joseph Maria de Alberquerque, 
Aranjo de Magalnhaens Homen, noblemen to her majesty's household, 6cc. &c. 
I do hereby attest and certify, to all who shall see these presents, written by 
my command, and signed at the bottom with my sign manual, and with the 
broad seal of my arms, close to my said signature, and a little to the left of it, 
that the lord Saint Anthony of Lisbon^ but falsely called Padua^ has been iii- 
listed and had a place in this regiment ever since the 24th of January, of the 
year of our Lord Jesus Christ, 1688, as will appear more particularly below. 
I further attest that the fifty-nine within certificates, numbered from unity to 
the number 59, and with the cypher of my name set close to each number, do 
contain and comprehend a true and faithful relation of the miracles and other 
eminent exercises, the said St. Anthony has at different times rendered and 
performed in this regiment, in consequence of his having a place in it, as at« 
tested by many persons now alive, of whose veracity there can be nb doubt. I 
do further certify upon my word of honour, as a nobleman, a knight, and a ca- 
tholic gentleman and christian, (as by God's grace I am,) what hereunto fol- 
lows : That having read over and perused attentively all the papers, note-books, 
and registers of our regiment, ever since its first formation, and having copied 
out of the said papers every thing relating to the said St. Anthony, it is de verba 
ad verbum^ what follows here, for the truth of which I refer to the said books 
and papers lodged in the archives of our regiment. Tliat on the 24th of Ja- 
nuary, 1688, by order of his majesty Don Pedro the Second, St. Anthony was 
enlisted as a private soldier in this regiment of infantry of Lagos, when it was 
first formed by command of the said prince, and of such enlistment there was 
a register found, which now exists in the first column of the register book of 
this regiment, folio 143, wherein he gave for his surety the queen of angels, 
who became answerable that he should not desert his colours, but always be- 
have like a good soldier in the regiment ; and thus did the saint continue to 
serve, and to do duty as a private in the regiment, until Sept. 1693, on which 
day the same prince by the decease of his brother, Alfonso the Sixth, became 
king of Portugal, and on the same day his majesty promoted St. Anthony to 
the rank of captain. (Then follow the miracles and services of St. Anthony 
for the good of the regiment.) 



185 

Turin, in 1739, is evidence of so large a subsfrative mass of su- 
perstition as an Englishman can scarcely imagine to belong to 
modern times. It was witnessed by the Rev. Joseph Spence, 
who, in a letter to his mother, dated the 2d of Dec. in that year, 
and recently published in a very interesting work,^ gives a lively 
description of the curious performance. He says : — 

* As 1 was walking one evening under the porticos of the street 
of the Po, 1 saw an inscription over a great gate ; which, as I 
am a very curious traveller, you may be sure I did not miss read- 
ing. I found by it, that the house belonged to a set of strollers, 
and that the inscription was a bill of the play they were to act 
that evening. You may imagine how surprised I was to find it con- 
ceived in the following words : " Here under the porticos of the 
Charitable Hospital for such as have the venereal disease, will be 
represented this evening, The Damned Soul, with proper Decora- 
tions.*' As this seemed to be one of the greatest curiosities I 
could possibly meet with in my travels, I immediately paid my 
threepence, was shewed in with great civility, and took my seat 
among a number of people, who seemed to expect the tragedy of 
the night with great seriousness. — At length the curtain drew up ; 
and discovered the Damned Soul, all alone, with a melancholy as- 
pect. She was, for what reason I do not know, drest like a fine 
lady, in a gown of flame-coloured satin. She held a while hand- 
kerchief in her hand, which she applied often to her eyes ; and in 
this attitude, with a lamentable voice, began a prayer to the holy 
and ever blessed Trinity to enable her to speak her part well : 
afterwards she addressed herself to all the good Christians in the 
room ; begged them to attend carefully to what she had to say, 
and heartily wished they would be the better for it ; she then 
gave an account of her life ; and, by her own confession, ap- 
peared to have been a very naughty woman in her time. — This 
was the Jirst scene. At the second, a back curtain was drawn, 
and gave us a sight of our Saviour and the blessed Virgin, amidst 
the clouds. The poor soul addressed herself to our Saviour first, 

*» S])ence'» Anecdotes of Books and Men by S. W. Singer, 1820, 8vo. p. 397, 



184 

who rattled her extremely, and was indeed all the while very se- 
vere. All she desired was to be sent to purgatory, instead of 
going to hell : and she at last begged very hard to be sent into 
the fire of the former for as many years as there are drops of 
water in the sea. As no favour was shown her on that side, she 
turned to the Virgin and begged her to intercede for her. The 
Virgin was a very decent woman, and answered her gravely, but 
steadily ; ' that she had angered her son so much, that she could 
do nothing for her \ and on this they both went away together. — 
The third scene consisted of three little angels and the damned 
soul. She had no better luck with them ; nor with St. John 
the Baptist and all the saints in the Jourth : so, in the Jifth, she 
was left to two devils, seemingly to do what they would with . 
her : one of these devils was very ill-natured and fierce to her ; 
the other was of the droll kind, and for a devil, I cannot say but 
what he was good-natured enough, though he delighted in vexing 
the poor lady rather too much. — In the sixth scene matters be- 
gan to mend a little. St. John the Baptist, (who had been with 
our Saviour, I believe, behind the scenes) told her, if she would 
continue her entreaties, there was yet some hope for her. She 
on this again besought our Saviour and the Virgin to have com- 
passion on her : the Virgin was melted with her tears, and desired 
her son to have pity on her; on which it was granted, that she 
should go into the fire only for sixteen or seventeen hundred thou- 
sand years ; and she was very thankful for the mildness of the sent- 
ence.— The seventh (aad last) scene, was a contest between the 
two infernal devils abovementioned, and her guardian angel. They 
came in again ; one grinning, and the other open mouthed to de- 
vour her. The angel told them that they should get about their 
business. He, with some difficulty, at last drove them off the 
stage, and handed off the good lady, assuring her that all would 
be very well, after some hundred of thousands of years with her. 
— All this while, in spite of the excellence of the actors, the 
greatest part of the entertainment to me was the countenances of 
the people in the pit and boxes. When the devils were like to 
carry her off, every body was in the utmost consternation ; and 



185 

when St. John spoke so obligingly to her, they were ready to 
cry out for joy. When the Virgin appeared on the stage, every 
body looked respectful; and on several words spoke by the 
actors, they pulled off their hats and crossed themselves. What 
can you think of a people, where their very farces are religious, 
and where they are so religiously received? May you be the 
better for reading of it, as I was for seeing it ! — There was but 
one thing that offended me. All the actors, except the devils, 
were women, and the person who represented the most venerable 
character in the whole play, just after the representation, came 
into the pit ; and fell a kissing a barber of her acquaintance, be- 
fore she had changed her dress. She did me the honour to speak 
to me too ; but I would have nothing to say to her. — It was fron\ 
such a play as this (called Adam and Eve) that Milton, when he 
was in Italy, is said to have taken the first hint for his divine poem 
of Paradise Lost. What small beginnings are there sometimes to 
the greatest things V^ 

An obliging correspondent acquaints me with the representa- 
tion of a Mystery that he saw when a boy at Bamberg, in Ger- 
many, about the year 1783. ' The end of a house or barn being 
taken away, a dark hole appeared hung with old tapestry, the 
wrong side outwards ; a curtain running along and dividing the 
middle. On this stage the Creation was performed. A stu- 
pid looking Capuchin personated the Creator. He entered in a 
large full bottomed wig, with a false beard, wearing over the 
rusty dress of his order a brocade morning gown, the lining of 
light blue silk being rendered visible occasionally by the pride 
that the wearer took to shew it, and he eyed his slippers of the 
same material with equal satisfaction. He first came on making 
his way through the tapestry, groping about ; and, purposely run- 
ning his head against posts, exclaimed with a sort of peevish 
authority, ' Let there be light !' at the same time pushing the ta- 



a I have taken the liberty to alter some peculiarities in the orthography of 
Spence's letter. I shoulAnot have extracted it entire from Mr. Sing^er's very 
pleasant volume, if his authors narrative had permitted abridgment. 



186 

pestry right and left, and disclosing a glimmer through linen cloths 
from candles placed behind them. The creation of the sea was 
represented by the pouring of water along the stage ; and the 
making of the dry land, by the throwing of mould. Angels were 
personated by girls and young priests habited in dresses hired from 
a masquerade shop, to which the wings of geese were clumsily at- 
tached near the shoulders. These angels actively assisted the 
character in the flowered dressing-gown in producing the stars, 
moon, and sun. To represent winged fowl, a number of cocks 
and hens were fluttered about : and for other living creatures, 
some cattle were driven on the stage, with a well shod horse, and 
two pigs having rings in their noses. Soon afterwards Adam ap- 
peared. He was a great clumsy fellow in a strangely shaped wig, 
and being closely clad with a sort of coarse stocking, looked quite as 
grotesque as in the worst of the old wood cuts, and something like 
Orson, but not so decent. He stalked about wondering at every 
thing, and was followed from among the beasts by a large ugly 
niastiff with a brass collar on. When he reclined to sleep, pre- 
paratory to the production of Eve, the mastifl^ lay down by him. 
This occasioned some strife between the old man in brocade, 
Adam, and the dog, who refused to quit his post ; nor would he 
move when the angels tried to whistle him ofl*. The performance 
proceeded to the supposed extraction of a rib from the dog's 
master, which being brought forwards, and shewn to the audience, 
was carried back to be succeeded by Eve, who in order to seem 
rising from Adam's side, was dragged up from behind his back 
through an ill concealed and equally ill contrived trap-door, by 
the performer in brocade. As he lifted her over, the dog being 
trod upon frightened her by a sudden snap so that she tumbled 
upon Adam. This obtained a hearty kick from a clumsy angel 
to the dog, who consoled himself by discovering the rib produced 
before, which being a beef bone, he tried his teeth upon. Eve 
was personated by a priest of effeminate look, but aukward in 
form, with long locks, composed of something like strands of 
rope, which hung stiffly down the back, and were brought round 
to fasten in front below the waist. So many years have elapsed 



187 

that I scarcely recollect any more of this singular scene. But 
the driving of Adam and Eve out of paradise was entrusted to a 
priest dressed as an angel, whose fiery pasteboard sword being 
angrily broken by Adam, in consequence of a blow he received 
from it on the head, the angel produced from beneath his habit, 
his knotted capuchin rope, which he so applied to Adam's back, 
as to effect his expulsion, I am sorry that I do not remember 
more of .this strange performance, but I assure you that I did 
not perceive any risibility among the audience, which was com- 
posed of persons of all ranks ; I knew most of tliem, and with the 
exception of myself and the persons with me, I believe they were 
all Roman Catholics. However, I well recollect seeing also at Bam- 
berg a public procession representing the Passion^ wherein Jews 
and Romans were dressed like Salvator Rosa's banditti, and wore 
French small swords. Every thing went off very quietly till it 
was discovered that some protestant students from Erlang had in- 
sinuated lamp-black into the holy water pots. This produced a 
desperate fight, in which the cross was thrown down, and the 
young girls who walked in the procession scourging their naked 
backs, under a vow to continue this discipline to the end, made 
their way to the Amtmann's (headborough's) door, asking him in 
terror what they were to do, but lashing themselves all the time. 
At last the mischievous students were severely, and I must say, 
deservedly beaten ; but the priest who bore the cross and per- 
sonated Christ, had prudently escaped from the fray, and not be- 
ing fouqd to conclude the performance, the rest of his brethren 
persuaded a raw countryman to undertake his part. He did very 
well until he was to enact the crucifixion. This he found great 
fault with, and stoutly resisted, insisting in no very civil language 
that he must and would go home. These exhibitions took place 
in the neighbourhood of the protestant universities of Erlang and 
Altona, where they were the objects of as much ridicule as, from 
ancient usage, they were the subjects of catholic admiration. Cus- 
tom is an amalgam of sense and folly, and should be watched as 
jealously as the Inquisition, which, after its establishment, com- 



188 

mitted the most horrible cruelties without exciting sytnpathy ; for 
custom alone, in process of time, rendered the mind indifferent to 
its dreadful barbarities/ 

It might be supposed that mysteries had made their last ap- 
pearance on any stage ; yet the author of Lallah Rookh records 
the performance of scriptural and apocryphal subjects at Paris, in 
the year 1817. One of his later pieces* introduces an English 
girl, in that metropolis, relating, epistleways, to her female friend 
in England, that at 

They call it the play-house— I think — of St. Martin, 
Quite charming — and very religious — what folly 
To say that the French are not pious, dear Dolly, 
When here one beholds, so correctly and rightly. 
The Testament turn'd into melo-drames nightly ; 
And, doubtless, so fond they're of scriptural facts. 
They will soon get the Pentateuch ^ up in five acts. 
Here Daniel, in pantomime,*!* bids bold defiance 
To Nebuchadnezzar and all his stufFd lions; 
While pretty young Israelites dance round the prophet. 
In very thin clothing, and but little of it : — 



» The Fudge Family in Paris, p. 42 and p. 145. 

* [' The Old Testament, says the theatrical critic in the " Gazette 
de France," is a mine of gold for the managers of our small play- 
houses. A multitude crowd round the theatre de la Gaiete every 
evening to see the Passage of the Red Sea/ 

' In the play-bill of one of these sacred melo-drames at Vienna, we 
find The Voice of G—d by M. Schwartz/] 

t ['A piece, very popular last year, (1817,) called Daniel, oula 
Fosse aux Lions, The following scene will give an idea of the daring 
sublimity of these scriptural pantomimes. " Scene 20. — La fournaise 
devient un berceau de nuages azures, au fond duquel est un grouppe 
de nuages plus lumineux, et au milieu Jehovah au centre d'un cercle 
de rayons briUans, qui annonce la presence de rEternal." '] 



189 

Here Begrandy^ who shines in this scriptural path, 
As the lovely Susanna, without ev'n a relic 

Of drapery round her, comes out of the bath 

In a manner that, Bob says, is quite £tJe-angelic ! 

To this late instance of such performances may be annexed, 
a recent proceeding before the tribunal of Correctional Police 
at Paris. In October, 1822, M. Michelot, the editor of the 
Miroir, was accused of having outraged the religion of the 
state, by publishing an article which consisted principally of a 
letter written from Dieppe, in the following terms : — ' Travel- 
ling Shows, — You must remember to have seen at St. Cloud, 
certain tents in which monkeys, learned dogs, and other pheno- 
mena, are shown to such persons as feel interested in these mat- 
ters. Walking on the port the other day with some friends, I 
proposed that we should enter a tent of this kind to see what ani- 
mals it contained. We approached one, and heard the crier, a 
trumpet in his hand, calling to the people, and, with the voice of 
a Stentor, announcing that the show would commence immedi- 
ately, and that it would be still more wonderful than any that had 
before been exhibited. ^* Walk in," said he, •' Ladies and Gen- 
tlemen ; you will see the Birth of our Saviour, the Doubts of 
Joseph about the Virgin Mary, his wife, the Passion, the Re' 
surrection, &c." We rushed in, and obtained the front seat with- 
out caring for the price, which, however, was full sixpence. The 
curtain was soon drawn up, and 1 saw all the family of Punch 
transformed into Jews, Pharisees, and magicians. The virgin 
appeared, and was put to bed and delivered without the pains of 
childbirth. Joseph, who did not understand this affair, called his 
spouse some hard names, that mightily pleased the audience, 

^ [Madame Begrand, a finely formed woman, who acts in Susanna 
and the Elders.— V Amour et la Folie, ^c] * 

a Madame BSgrand lately left the pious audiences and congregations of the 
Theatre de la Porte St. Martin, and the catholic missionaries at Paris, for an 
engagement at the King's Theatre, London, where the apocryphal story of 
Susama and the elders is not acted '' for example of life and instruction of 
manners." 

2 A 



190 

which was chiefly composed of the inhabitants of the port. " You 
see," said a married woman who sat behind me, " that the in- 
justice of husbands preceded the birth of the Saviour." This 
reflection diverted those who heard it. The " Passion'* followed 
what we had just seen. The character of Judas was admirable ; 
however, every body seemed to be of opinion that it was common, 
and might be met with every day. Herod, with a doctor's cap 
on his head, interpreted very badly, and discovered in the least 
actions of our Saviour sufficient cause for his crucifixion. Pontius 
Pilate washed his hands of the business with an air the most be- 
coming and indifferent imaginable. The show, according to the 
announcement, finished with the Resurrection, The spectators 
retired, cracking a thousand jokes, upon the puppets changed into 
Jews and Romans, and I for a moment imagined myself carried 
back to that remote period of which Boileau speaks, when an 
ignorant troop of strollers represented mysteries on temporary 
scaffoldings — 

" Et sottement z&Ue en sa simplicity, 
Jouait les saints, la Vierge, et Dieu par pi6t^.' " 

The article concluded by some reflections on the abuse of this 
kind of spectacle, and the King's Advocate, after minutely cri- 
ticising it, called for the condemnation of M. Michelot, its ac- 
knowledged author. M. Chaix d'Est Ange, advocate for M. 
Michelot, offered to prove that the scandalous spectacle described 
by the au'ehor was really exhibited, and contended that the descrip^ 
tion was unaccompanied by comments. Upon which the tribunal 
gave judgment, that the article entitled, * Travelling Shows/ was 
only a description of a theatrical representation which took place 
in the town of Dieppe, a fact not denied by the public prose- 
cutor, and that the object of the article was not to outrage or 
turn into ridicule the religion of the state, but rather to shew the 
impropriety and the abuse of theatrical representations of holy 
mysteries, and to denounce them, if not to authority, at least to 
public opinion. The complaint was therefore dismissed. 

The theatre of Strasburg, in 181 6, exhibited an improve- 
ment on the ancient performance of mysteries. It consisted 
of scenes accurately representing particular events in the life 



191 

of Christ from the best pictures of the great masters. Not a 
word was spoken^ and there was very little motion : the harmo- 
nica, an instrument of dulcet sound, concealed from view, played 
sacred tunes, and occasionally the plaintive voices of females sung 
in parts. In this way were successively exhibited, the annuncia- 
tion by Guide ; the adoration of the shepherds, after Domeni- 
chino ; the offerings of the wise men, by Rembrandt ; the raising 
of the widow's son, by Da Vinci ; the disciples at Emmaus, by 
Titian; the last supper, by Guido; the washing of the disciples' 
feet, by Rubens ; the scourging, after S. Rosa ; the crowning 
with thorns, by Spagnoletto ; the crucifixion, by Rubens; the 
descent from the cross, by Raphael ; and the Resurrection, after 
An. Caracci. The representation was remarkably impressive.* 

A gentleman educated in the Jesuits' seminary, belonging to 
the cathedral of the same city, Strasbourg, informs me that it 
was, and still is the custom, during the space of a fortnight pre- 
vious to the vacations of that seminary, for the scholars to per- 
form sacred plays, in the Latin language ; and, in particular, he 
well recollects, the representation in 1769, of the principal sub- 
jects in the Old and New Testament, commencing from the 
creation, and ending with the crucifixion, when he himself played 
Pilate, and his brother Christ, before audiences of the first rank 
and opulence. The Old Elector Theodore of Bavaria, espe- 
cially patronized this species of entertainment, and preferred it 
to the legitimate drama. The inhabitants of Munich, Strau- 
bingen, Ingolstadt, Passau, and most of the towns on the right 
of the Daiiube, witnessed these exhibitions every Sunday during 
Lent, until the French interrupted them ; but they have since 
been restored, and the Annunciation, Incarnation, and other Mys- 
teries are regularly played, at the theatre for concerts and ora- 
torios in Munich, If I am not misinformed the sermons of Fa- 
ther Parhamer, a Jesuit at the court of Joseph I. contain very 
remarkable anecdotes concerning these plays at that period. In 
the time of the Empress Maria Theresa, they were encouraged 
by the royal presence, attended by the court, and had the patr©a- 

a Blackwood's Magazine, Nov. 1 817. 



im 



age of her government. At Berlin, in 1804 and 5, the grand 
sacred comedy of David, in five acts, with battles and choruses, 
was performed by the comedians in the National Theatre, 
Throughout March, April, and May, 1810, the same play was 
represented at Vienna ; and while the Congress was held there 
in 1815, it was again performed with the utmost possible splen- 
dour. The back of the stage, extending into the open air, 
gradually ascended to a distance sufficient to admit carriages and 
horses, and the evolutions of at least five hundred Austrian 
soldiers, infantry and cavalry, who, habited in the characters 
of Jews and Philistines, carried muskets and carbines, defiled 
and deployed, charged with the bayonet, let off their fire-arms, 
and played artillery, to represent the battles described in the 
Book of Kings. The Emperor Alexander of Russia, the king 
of Prussia, and other monarchs, with their ministers, and the 
representatives of different courts, at the Congress, attended these 
plays, which were exhibited at the great theatre An der Wien 
to crowded audiences, at the usual prices of admission. 

Dr. Burney says, it is certain that the modern tragedy is taken 
from the mysteries, and that the Oratorio is only a mystery, or 
morality in music. The Oratorio commenced with the priests of 
the Oratory, a brotherhood founded at Rome in 1540, by St. 
Philip Neri, who in order to draw youth to church, had hymns, 
psalms, and spiritual songs, or cantatas, sung either in chorus, or 
by a single favourite voice. These pieces were divided into two 
parts, the one performed before the sermon, and the other after 
it. Sacred stories, or events from scripture, written in verse, and 
by way of dialogue, were set to music, and the first part being 
performed, the sermon succeeded, which the people were induced 
to stay and hear, that they might be present at the performance of 
the second part. The subjects in early times were the good Sa- 
maritan, the Prodigal Son, Tobit with the angel, his father, and 
his wife, and similar histories, which by the excellence of the com- 
position, the band of instruments, and the performance, brought 
the Oratory into great repute ; and hence this species of musical 
drama obtained the general appellation of Oratorio, 



193 



1 






1 




n 


m 






^^^^fe 



VIII. THE BOY BISHOP— ENGLISH MYS- 
TERIES. 



* All this was done with solemnity of celebratioD and appetite of seeing.' 

GregorU, 



Ot. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra in the fourth century^ was a 
saint of great virtue, and disposed so early in life to conform to 
ecclesiastical rule, that when an infant at the breast he fasted on 
Wednesday and Friday, and sucked but once on each of those 
days, and that towards night.* An Asiatic gentleman sending 
his two sons to Athens for education, ordered them to wait on 
the bishop for his benediction. On arriving at Myra with their 
baggage they took up their lodging at an inn, purposing, as it was 
late in the day, to defer their visit till the morrow ; but in the 



» Ribadeneira, vol. ii. p. 503. 



194 

mean time the innkeeper, to secure their effects to himself, killed 
the young gentlemen, cut them into pieces, salted them, and in- 
tended to sell them for pickled pork. St. Nicholas being favoured 
with a sight of these proceedings in a vision, went to the inn, and 
reproached the cruel landlord for his crime, who immediately con- 
fessing ii, entreated the Saint to pray to heaven for his pardon. 
The Bishop moved by his confession and contrition, besought 
forgiveness for him, and supplicated restoration of life to the 
children. He had scarcely finished when the pieces reunited, 
and the animated youths threw themselves from the brine-tub 
at the Bishop*s feet : he raised them up, exhorted them to return 
thanks to God alone, gave them good advice for the future, be- 
stowed his blessing on them, and sent them to Athens with great 
joy to prosecute their studies.* 

This miracle, were there no other, sufficiently accounts for St. 
Nicholas having been anciently selected by scholars and youth for 
their patron, as well as for the children of the choir selecting his 



a Rev. W. Cole, (in Gent.'s Mag. vol. xlvii. p. 158.) from a Life of St. Ni- 
cholas, 3d. edit. 4to. Naples, 1645. See Brandy vol. i. p. 325. The Salis- 
bury Missal of 1534, fol. xxvii. contains a prayer to St. Nicholas, before 
which is an engraving on wood of the Bishop with the children rising from the 
tub ; but better than all, by a licence that artists formerly assumed of represent- 
ing successive scenes in the same print, the landlord himself is shown in the 
act of reducing a limb into sizes suitable for his mercenary purpose ; to be sure 
there are only two children in the story, and there are three in the tub ; but 
it is fairly to be conjectured that the story was thought so good as to be worth 
making a little better. As St. Nicholas is the patron of the company of Parish 
Clerks of London, of whom from their former performance of Mysteries there 
will be occasion to speak hereafter, as well as the patron of scholars, who also 
represented these religious plays and likewise personated the Boy Bishop, I 
have thought it seemly to precede the above narration by a fac-simile of the 
Missal cut. St. Nicholas is likewise the patron of sailors, for which there 
are reasons enough in Ribadeneira, if relations of miracles be reasons. That 
writer also says of St. Nicholas that ' being present at the Council of Nice, among 
three hundred and eighteen bishops, who were there assembled together to 
condemn the heresy of Arius, he shone among them all with so great clarity, 
and opinion of sanctity, that he appeared like a sun amongst so many stars.' — 
Lwes qfthe SalntSf vol. ii. p. 507. 



195 

anniversary for the exhibition about to be described. Anciently 
on the 6th of December, the choir boys in cathedral churches'* 
chose one of their number to maintain the state and authority of a 
bishop, for which purpose he was habited in rich episcopal robes, 
wore a mitre on his head, and bore a crosier in his hand ; his fel- 
lows for the time being assuming the character and dress of priests, 
yielding him canonical obedience, taking possession of the church, 
and except mass, performing all the ceremonies and offices. 
Though the Boy Bishop's election was on the 6th of December, 
yet his office and authority lasted till the /28th, being Innocents 
day.** From a printed church book containing the service of the 
Boy Bishop set to music,*" we learn that on the eve of Innocents 
day, the Boy Bishop and his youthful clergy, in their copes, and 
with burning tapers in their hands, went in solemn procession, 
chanting and singing versicles as they walked into the choir by the 
west door, in such order that the dean and canons went foremost, 
the chaplains next, and the Boy Bishop with his priests in the last 
and highest place. He then took his seat, and the rest of the chil- 
dren disposed themselves upon each side of the choir upon the up- 
permost ascent, the canons resident bearing the incense and the 
book, and the petit-canons the tapers according to the rubrick. 



* Brand, vol. i. p. 330. 

•* lunocents day being an annual commemoration of Herod's murder of the 
children, * it hath been a custom, and yet is elsewhere, to whip up the children 
upon Innocents-day morning that the niemorie of this niurther might stick 
the closer ; and, in a moderate proportion, to act over the cruelty again in 
kind.' This custom is cited from Gregorie, by Brand, who omits to mention 
another which Gregorie states on the authority of an old ritual belonging to 
the Abbey of Oseney, communicated to him by his friend Dr. Gerard Langbain, 
the Provost of Queen's College, from which it appears that at the church of 
Oseney, * they were wont to bring out upon this day the foot of a child pre- 
pared after their fashion, and put upon with red and black colours, as to sig- 
nify the dismal part of that day. They put this up in a chest in the vestry, 
ready to be produced at the time, and to be solemnly carried about the church 
to be adored by the people.'— Gr^g-one** Works, 1684, 4to. (Episcopus Puerorum 
in Die Innocentiuntf) p. 113. 

« Processionale ad usum insignis et preclare Ecclesie Sanim, Rothomagi, 
1566, 4to. 



196 

Afterwards he proceeded to the altar of the Holy Trinity, and All 
saints, which he first censed, and next the image of the Holy Tri- 
nity, his priests all the while singing. Then they all chanted a 
service with prayers and Responses, and, in the like manner taking his 
seat, the Boy Bishop repeated salutations, prayers, and versicles, and 
in conclusion gave his benediction to the people, the chorus answer- 
ing, Deo gr atlas. After he received his crosier from the cross-bearer 
other ceremonies were performed, and he chanted the complyn ; 
turning towards the quire he delivered an exhortation ; and last of 
all said, ' Benedicat Vos omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et 
spiritus Sanctus.' By the statute of Sarum no one was to in- 
terrupt or press upon the children during their procession or ser- 
vice in the cathedral, upon pain of anathema. It appears that 
the Boy Bishop at this cathedral held a kind of visitation, and 
maintained a corresponding state and prerogative ; and he is sup- 
posed to have had power to dispose of prebends that fell vacant 
during his episcopacy. If he died within the month he was 
buried like other bishops in his episcopal ornaments, his obse- 
quies were solemnized with great pomp, and a monument was 
erected to his memory, with his episcopal effigy. 

About a hundred and fifty years ago a Boy- Bishop's monument 
in stone was discovered in Salisbury cathedral under the seats 
near the pulpit, from whence it was removed to the north part of 
the nave between the pillars, and covered over with a box of 
wood, to the great admiration of those who unacquainted with 
the anomalous character it designed to commemorate, thought it 
' almost impossible that a bishop should be so small in person, 
or a child so great in clothes.' Gregorie, who was a prebendary 
of Salisbury, relates the finding of this monument, and inserts a 
representation of it in his treatise from which the sketch on the 
ensuing page is a copy .a 



a Brand, (vol.i. p. 3S2.) says that * Gregory in his account of the Episcopus 
'Pmrorunij thought he had made a great discovery, and confined it to Salisbury.' 
This is an incorrect representation, which I notice the rather as Bcand isusuaMy 
accurate, and because Gregorie had before l^een contemptuously spok«n of by 



197 




The ceremony of the Boy Bishop is supposed to have existed 
not only in collegiate churches, but in almost every parish. He 



Bentley, in his answer to Collins, as * one Gregory.' There is no afifectation 
of a * great discovery' in Gregory's narrative ; and so far from his supposing 
that the Boy Bishop was ' confined to Salisbury,' he adduces instances to the 
contrary. It is true that at first he did not know the occasion of the monument 
there, and that the bishop of the diocese (Montague) wishing him to inquire 
farther, he found in the statutes the title concerning the chorister-bishop, which 
directed him to the processional: yet he afterwards notices the same cus- 
tom at York; cites Molanus as saying, * that this bishop in some places did 
reditat censuSf et capones ammo accipere, receive rents, capons, &c. during 
his year, &c.' and that a chorister-bishop in the church of Cambray disposed of 
a prebend which fell void during his episcopal assumption to his master; and 
refers to the denunciation of the Boy Bishop by the council of Basil as a well 
known custom. Dr. Sharpe (Argum. in def. of Christianity, 8vo, 1755, p. 156,) 
quotes him asUhe learned Mr. John Gregory of Oxford.' 

9. B 



198 

and his companions walked about in procession. A statute of t!ie 
collegiate church of St. Mary OfFery, in 1337, restrained one of 
them within the limits of his own parish. On Pec. 7, 1229, the 
day after St. Nicholas's day, the Boy Bishop in the chapel at 
Heton, near Newcastle upon Tyne, said vespers before Edward I. 
on his way to Scotland, who made a considerable present to him 
and the other boys who sang with him. In the reign of king 
Edward III. he received a present of nineteen shillings and six- 
pence for singing before the king in his private chamber on In- 
nocents day. Dean Colet in the statutes of the school founded 
by him in 1512, at St. PauFs, expressly orders that his scholars 
shall every Childermas (Innocents) day, ' come to Paulis Churche 
and hear the Chylde-Byshop's sermon : and after be at the hygh 
masse, and each of them offer a penny to the Chylde-Byshop : 
and with them the maisters and surveyors of the scole.' By a 
proclamation of Henry VIII. dated July 22, 1542, the show of 
the Child- Bishop was abrogated, but in the reign of Mary it was 
revived. One of the flattering songs sung before that queen by 
the Boy Bishop and printed, was a panegyric on her devotion, 
and compared her to Judith, Esther, the Queen of Sheba, and 
the Virgin Mary. The accounts of St. Mary at Hill, London, 
in the lOdi Henry VL, and for 1549, and 1550, contain charges 
for the Boy Bishops of those years. At this period his estima- 
tion seems to have been undiminished ; for on Nov. 13, 1554, 
the Bishop of London issued an order to all the clergy of his 
diocese to have a Boy Bishop in procession ; and in the same 
year he went about St. Andrew's Hoiborn, and St. Nicholas Olaves 
in Bread-street, and other parishes. In 1556, the Boy Bishop 
again went abroad singing in the old fashion, and was received by 
many ignorant but well-disposed persons into their houses, and 
had much good cheer. 

Warton affirms that the practice of electing a Boy Bishop 
subsisted in common grammar-schools ; for St. Nicholas as the 
patron of scholars has a double feast at Eton College, where, in 
the papal times, the scholars (to avoid interfering as it should seem 
with the Boy Bishop of the college on St. Nicholas day) elected 



199 

their Boy Bishop on St. Hugh's day, in the month of November. 
Brand is of opinion that the anniversary monfem at Eton, is only 
a corruption of the ceremony of the Boy Bishop and his com- 
panions, who by the edict of Henry VHI. being prevented from 
mimicking any longer their religious superiors, gave a new face 
to their festivity, and began their present play at soldiers, and 
electing a captain. Even within the memory of persons alive when 
Brand wrote, the montem was kept in the winter time a little be- 
fore Christmas, although it is now kept on Whit Tuesday. A 
former provost of the school remembered when the scholars were 
accustomed to cut a passage through the snow from Eton to the 
hill called Salt-hill. After the procession had arrived, the chap- 
lain with his clerk used to read prayers, and then, at the con- 
clusion, the chaplain kicked the clerk down the hiil.a 

During the period of gloom that succeeded the first ages of 
ecclesiastical power, we have seen the nature of the diversions it 
provided for the people on the continent ; and that one of them, 
the ceremony of the Boy Bishop, was practised in the churches 
here. From the same source England derived the precursors 
of its regular drama, the Mysteries. The first trace of theatrical 
representation in this country is recorded by Matthew Paris, who 
wrote about 1240, and relates that Geoffrey, a learned Norman, 
master of the school of the Abbey of Dunstable, composed the 
play of St. Catharine, which was acted by his scholars. Geoffrey's 



a Brand, Warton, and Gregorie, from whom, with the exceptions noted, 
these particulars are taken, may be consulted for further information concern- 
ing the Boy Bishop. Brand has also preserved this Extract from ike St. Jameses 
Chronicle, of Nov. 16 to 18, 1797 : — * From Zug in Switzerland, it is observed, that 
the annual procession of the Fete of the Bishop and his Scholars, on the fair-day 
is suppressed by authority. The bishop it seems was only a scholar habited as 
such. Going through the streets, he was preceded by a chaplain carrying his 
crosier, and followed by a fool in the usual costume, the latter also carrying a 
staff with a bladder filled with pease. Other scholars, dressed like canons, 
with a military guard, made up the procession. After going to church, it was 
the Bishop's custom to go and demand money from all the booths and stands 
in the fair. The French, and other traders, it is said, had complained of this 
absurd exaction, and the Bishop, it is added, means to appeal to the Pope.^ 



200 

performance took place in the year 1110, and he borrowed copes 
from the sacrist of the neighbouring abbey of St. Albans, to dress 
his characters.^ Fitzstephen writing in 1174, says, that ' Lon- 
don, for its theatrical exhibitions, has religious plays, either the 
representations of miracles wrought by holy confessors, or the suf- 
ferings of martyrs.' ^ Besides those of Coventry, there are MSS. 
of the Chester Mysteries,'^ ascribed to Ranulph Higden, compiler 
of the Polychronicon, and a Benedictine monk of that city, where 
they were performed at the expense of the incorporated trades, 
with a thousand days of pardon from the Pope, and forty days of 
pardon from the Bishop of Chester, to all who attended the re- 
presentation, which is supposed to have been first had in the year 
13^8.^1 



a Warton, vol. i. Dissert, ii. GeolJrey was afterwards made abbot of St. 
Alban's Priory. 

^ * Lnndonia pro spectaculis tlieatralibus, pro ludis scenicis, ludos habet 
sanctiores, repraesentationes miraculoruni, quae sancti coufessores operati sunt, 
seu repraesentationes papioimra, quibus claruit coustantia martyrum.' — De- 
script. Nobilit. Civit. Lund, in Vita S. Thomcc. 

«= Harl. MSS. 2013, 2124. 

^ * About the eighth century trade was principally carried on by means of 
fairs which lasted several days. Charlemagne established many great marts of 
this sort in France, as did William the Conqueror, and his Norman successors 
in England. The merchants who frequented these fairs in numerous caravans 
or companies, employed every art to draw the people together. They were 
therefore accompanied by jugglers, minstrels, and buffoons ; who were no less 
interested in giving their attendance, and exerting all their skill on these oc- 
casions. As now but few-large towns existed, no public spectacles or popular 
amusements were established ; and as the sedentary pleasures of domestic life 
and private society were yet unknown, the fair-time was the season for diver- 
sion. In proportion as these shows were attended and encouraged, they began 
to be set off with new decorations and improvements: and the arts of buf- 
foonery being rendered still more attractive, by extending their circle of exhi- 
bition, acquired an importance in the eyes of the people. By degrees the 
clergy observing that the entertainments of dancing, music, and mimicry, exhi- 
bited at the protracted annual fairs made the people less leligious, by promot- 
ing idleness and a love of festivity, proscribed these sports and excommunicated 
the performers. But finding that no regard was paid to their censures they 
changed their plan, and determined to take these recreations into their own 
bands. They turned actors; and instead of profane mummeries preseotecl 



201 

It is related in the Museum MS. of these Chester plays, 
that the author ' was thrice at Rome before he could obtain 
leave of the Pope to have them in the English tongue/ ** from 
which fact, Warton thinks, 'a presumptiveproof arises that all our 
mysteries before that period were in Latin ; these plays will there- 
fore have the merit of being the first English interludes/*' After 
the well known fondness of our ancestors for shows, it is too 
much, perhaps, to say, that on their church festivals and occasions 
of public rejoicing, they had no interludes in English ; seeing too 
that one hundred and fifty years before, Fitzstephen expressly de- 
clares that our theatrical representations in London were of a re- 
ligious character. These must have been in English to have been 
understood; and so must the miracle play of St. Catherine, in 
1 110, if, as was probably the case, it was publicly performed on 
some feast-day. Though Warton does not allude, probably, to 
such early times, when he says, that ' during the celebration of the 
festival of the Boy Bishop moralities were presented, and shows 
of miracles, with farces, and other sports ;* * yet, as the festival of 
the Boy Bishop was in England under Edward L,* and doubtless 
from his high antiquity on the continent, long antecedent to that 
reign, it is reasonable to suppose that English interludes of some 
kind, if not coeval with the Boy Bishop, were at least contem- 
poraneous with him for a long time before Edward I. 

What could occasion the author of the Chester plays to take a 
journey thrice to Rome, before he could obtain leave of the Pope 
to have them in the English tongue? The subjects of these 
plays ' from the Old and New Testament,' seem to me to supply 
the reasons for the difficulty in obtaining the Pope's consent. 
Scripture in English had been scrupulously withheld from the peo- 
ple, and the Pope probably anticipated that if they were made ac- 
quainted with a portion of it, the remainder would be demanded ; 



stories taken from legends or the bible. This was the origin of sacred comedy. 
— fTttrtoWjVol. ii. p. 367. 

a MS. %\U. ^ Warton, vol. ii. p. 180. 

•= Ibid. vol. i, p. 248. " Page 198, ante. 



202 

while the author of the plays, better acquainted than the Pope 
with the more immediate difficulty of altogether repressing the 
curiosity that had been excited towards it, conceived perhaps, that 
the growing desire might be delayed by distorted and confusing 
representations of certain portions.^ What for instance can be 
more ridiculous than the anachronisms and tone of the following 
extract from the play of the Flood, which represents Noah's wife 
positively refusing to enter the ark : 

Noe. 
Good wife, doe now, as 1 thee bidd. 

Noe's Wife. 
By Christ not I, ere I see more need, 
Though thou stande all day and stare. 

Noe. 

Lorde ! that women ben crabed be, 
And not are meeke, I dare well saye; 
. That is well scene by me, to day, 

In witnes of ye eichone : — 
Good wife, let be all this beare, 
Tliat thou makest in this place here. 
For all they wene thou art master. 

And soe thou arte, by Saint John. 



* It was the prevailing opinion that even the Latin Bibles should not be com- 
mon ©r allowed in every one's hands. Accordingly our poet Chaucer represents 
the religious as gathering them up and putting them in their libraries, and so 
imprisoning them from secular priests and curates, and therefore hindering 
them from preaching the gospel to the people. When therefore Abp. Fitz 
Ralph, in 1357, sent three or four of the secular priests of his diocese of Armagh 
into England, to study divinity in Oxford, they were forced very soon to re- 
turn, because they could not find there a bible to be sold. And indeed, had 
the copies of the bible been more frequent than they were, it is no wonder 
they were made so little use of, if what the writers of these times, D. Wiclif, 
Archdeacon Clemangis, Beleth, and others, say, be true, that the clergy were 
generally so ignorant, as not to be able to read Latin or con their I sailer. — 
Lewis's Hist, of Eng. Transl. p. 53. 



203 

Such corruptions and abstiidities, seconded by the eloquence of 
their author, might abate the papal fears concerning the appear- 
ance of these scriptural interludes in English, and finally obtain 
the sanction for their performance. 

It may be supposed that the Chester Plays, written in an 
early and dark age, would contain a great mass of apocryphal in- 
terpolation, and that the Coventry Plays, written much later, 
would contain less ; yet the contrary is the fact. Among the 
Chester Mysteries the Descent into Hell is the only one not 
founded on Scripture, and that even has a colourable authority by 
implication ; while among the Coventry Mysteries, which were 
produced ninety years afterwards, we see that there are, besides 
the Descent, no less than eight founded on Apocryphal New 
Testament story. This remarkable difference of feature, may, I 
think, be accounted for. From the fourth century, when Gre- 
gory Nazianzen and the ApoUonarii turned portions of the 
Bible into tragedies and comedies, the clergy of the continent 
must have done much in the same way, and with much of apocry- 
phal engraftment; and though 'religious plays' prevailedin England, 
yet Scriptural subjects were new to the people, and the Chester 
Mystery-maker of 1328, found these so numerous as to render re- 
course to the New^ Testament Apocrypha unnecessary. But the 
Coventry Mystery-maker of 1416, was under circumstances that 
would suggest powerful motives to the cunning of a monkish 
mind for apocryphal adoption. He was likely to conceive that a 
false glare might obscure the dawnings of the human mind. The 
rising day of the Reformation had been foretold by the ap- 
pearance of its ' morning star,' in the person of the intrepid Wy- 
cliffe, who exercised the right of private judgment in England, 
a century and a half before Luther taught it as a principle in 
Germany. It was a period of fearful foreboding to the church. 
In 1404, Henry IV. held a parliament at Coventry, which, 
from its desire to compel the clergy to contribute largely to the 
exigencies of the state, was called the Laymen's Parliament, The 
country was in imminent danger; an abundant supply of money 



was immediately necessary ; the church property and income were 
enormous ; the parliament knew that this profusion of ecclesias- 
tical wealth could only have been acquired from the industry of 
the laity ; and they represented that the clergy had been of little 
service to the king, while the laity had served in his wars with 
their persons, and by contributions for the same purpose had im- 
poverished their estates. The Archbishop of Canterbury said 
that if the clergy did not fight in person their tenants fought for 
them, that their contributions had been in proportion to their 
property, and that the church had offered prayers and masses day 
and night for God's blessing on the king and the army. The 
speaker, Sir John Cheyne, answered, that the prayers of the 
church were a very slender supply. To this the archbishop re- 
plied, that it might easily be seen what would become of the 
kingdom when such devout addresses were so slighted. The per- 
sistence of the archbishop saved the church at that time from 
the impending storm ; but the priests saw that their exactions and 
their worship were only tolerated. Wycliffe had then been 
dead about twenty years. After a life wonderfully preserved from 
the unsparing cruelty of ecclesiastical power, by the protection of 
Edward III., his memory was affectionately revered, and, as print- 
ing had not been discovered, his writings were scarce and earnestly 
sought. The good seed of dissent had germinated, and the appear- 
ance of dissenters at intervals, was a specimen of the harvest that 
had not yet come. Nothing more fearfully alarmed the establish- 
ment than Wycliffe's translation of the New Testament into Eng- 
lish.^ All arts were used to suppress it, and to enliven the slum- 
bering attachment of the people to the ' good old customs' of the 



* * Because writing was dear and expensive, and copies therefore of the whole 
New Testament not easy to be purchased by the generality of persons, Dr. 
Wiclif 's portions of it were often written in small volumes. Of these we often 
find mention made in the Bishop's registers as prohibited books, for having and 
reading which, people were then detected and prosecuted, and burnt to death, 
with these little books hanged about their necks'.— Lewis's Hist, of fc'ng-. TransL 
p. S9. 



205 

church. There is abundant evidence of studious endeavours to 
both these ends in the Coventry Mysteries. The priests in- 
dustriously reported that Wychffe's Testament was a false one ; 
that he had distorted the language and concealed facts. There 
was no printing press to multiply copies of his book ; biblical 
criticism was scarcely known but by being denounced ; the ec- 
clesiastics anathematized scriptural inquiry as damnable heresy 
from their confessionals and pulpits ; and as * the churches 
served as theatres for holy farces/^ the Franciscan friars of Co- 
ventry shortly after the meeting of the Laymen's Parliament in 
that city, craftily engrafting stories from the pseudo- gospels upon 
narratives in the New Testament, composed and performed the 
plays called the Coventry Mysteries. These fraudful produc- 
tions were calculated to postpone the period oi illumination, 
and to stigmatize, by implication, the labours of WyclifFe. Yet, 
if the simulation succeeded for awhile with the vulgar, it reinvi- 
gorated the honest and the persevering ; and as the sun breaks 
forth after a season of cold and darkness, so truth finally emerging 
from the gulph of the papal hierarchy, animated the torpid in- 
tellect, and cheered the ' long abused sight.' 

But to return. Warton says, that in very early times, while 
no settled or public theatre was known, and itinerant minstrels 
acted in the halls of the nobility at Christmas, plays were per- 
formed by the boys at the public schools, and have continued 
to be so to the present time, of which the practice of acting 
Latin plays at Westminster, Eton, and other seminaries, are ex- 
amples. In 1538, Ralph RadclifFe, a scholar and a lover of 
graceful erudition, wrote plays in Latin and English, which were 
exhibited by his pupils. Among his comedies were Dives and 
Lazarus, the delivering of Susannah, Job's sufferings, the burning 
of John Huss, Patient Grizzle, &c. The ancient consuetudi- 
nary as it is called of Eton school, containing all its old and 
original customs, relates that about the SOth of November the 
master was accustomed to choose such Latin stage plays as 



a Warton, vol. il. p. S67. 
2 C 



206 

were most excellent and convenient to be played in the following 
Christmas holidays before a public audience. While the people 
were amused with Skelton's Trial of Simony, Bale's God's Pro- 
mises, and Christ's Descent into Hell, the scholars of the times 
were composing and acting dramas on historical subjects ; and 
though Warton supposes it probable that on this ground we may 
account for plays being acted by singing boys, yet he thinks that 
they perhaps acquired a turn for theatrical representations from their 
annual exhibition of the ceremonies of the Boi/ Bishop, which seem 
to have been common in almost every religious community that 
was capable of supporting a choir.* The scholars of St. Paul's 
school in London, were, till a comparatively late period, in great 
celebrity for their theatrical talent, which it appears was in full 
exercise upon the Mysteries so early as the reign of Richard II. ; 
for in that year, 1S78, they presented a petition to his majesty, 
praying him * to prohibit some unexpert people from presenting 
the history of the Old and New Testament, to the great prejudice 
of the said clergy, who have been at great expense in order to 
represent it publicly at Christmas.' = 

But the more eminent performers of mysteries in London, were 
the society of Parish Clerks. On the 18ih, IQth, and 20th of 
July, 1390, they played interludes at the Skinner's Well, as the 
usual place of their performance, before king Richard II., his 
queen, and their court; and at the same place, in 1490, they 
played the Creation of the World, and subjects of the like kind, 
for eight successive days, to splendid audiences of the nobility 
and gentry from all psrts of England. The parish-clerks' an- 
cient performances are memorialized in raised letters of iron, upon 
a pump on the east side of Rag Street, now called Ray Street, 



^ WartOD, vol. ii. p. 389. 
b Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. i. Pref. p. xii. From Mysteries the boys of St. 
Paul's school proceeded to more regular dramas; and at the commencement of a 
theatre, were the best and almost the only comedians. They became at length 
so favourite a set of players as often to act at court, and on particular octasious 
of festivity, were frequently removed from London for this purpose only, to 
the royal houses at some distance from tovin,—fVarton, vol. ii. p. 391. 



207 

beyond the Sessions-house, Clerkenwell. The inscription is as 
follows : 

' A. D. 1800. William Bound, Joseph Bird, Church- 
wardens. For the better accommodation of the Neighbour- 
hood, this Pump was removed to the spot where it now stands. 

The spring, by which it is supplied is situated, four feet eastward, 
and round it, as history informs us, the Parish Clerks of 
London, in remote Ages, commonly performed sacred plays. 
That custom caused it to be denominated Cierk's-well, and from 
which this parish derived its name. 

The water was greatly esteemed by the Prior and Brethren of the 
order of St. John of Jerusalem, and the Benedictine Nuns in 
the neighbourhood.* 

The pump of the Skinner's well is let into a low dead wall. 
On its north side is an earthenware shop ; and on the south a 
humble tenement occupied by a bird-seller, whose cages with 
their chirping tenants, hang over and around the inscription. The 
passing admirer of linnets and redpoles, now and then stops 
awhile to listen to the melody, and refresh his eye with a few 
green clover turfs, that stand on a low table for sale by the side 
of the door ; while the monument, denoting the histrionic fame of 
the place, and alluding to the miraculous powers of the water for 
healing incurable diseases, which formerly attracted multitudes to 
the spot, remains unobserved beneath its living attractions. The 
present simplicity of the scene powerfully contrasts with the re- 
collection of its former splendour. The choral chant of the 
Benedictine nuns accompanying the peal of the deep-toned organ 
through their cloisters, and the frankincense curling its perfume 
from priestly censers at the altar, are succeeded by the stunning 
sounds of numerous quickly plied hammers, and the smith's bel- 
lows flashing the fires of Mr, Bound's iron foundry, erected upon 
the unrecognised site of the convent. This religious house stood 
about half-way down the declivity of the hill, which commencing 
near the church on Clerkenwell Green, terminates at the river 



208 

Fleet. The prospect then, was uninterrupted by houses^ and the 
people upon the rising grounds could have had an uninterrupted 
view of the performances at the well. About pistol-shot from 
thence, on the N. N.E. part of the hill, there was a Bear-Gar- 
den; and scarcely so far from the well, at the bottom of the hill 
westward, and a little to the north, in the hollow of Air Street, 
lies Hockley in the Hole, where different rude sports, which 
probably arose with the discontinuance of the Parish Clerks' 
acting, were carried on, within the recollection of persons still 
living, to the great annoyance of this suburb.* 

a ' To the ecclesiastical origin of the drama we must refer the plays acted by 
the society of the Parish-clerks of London. It was an essential part of their 
profession not only to sing but to read ; an accomplishment almost solely con- 
fined to the clergy: and on the whole they seem to come under the denomina- 
tion of a religious fraternity. They were incorporated into a guild or fellow- 
ship, by King Henry lit. about 12-40, under the patronage of St. Nicholas. It 
was anciently customary for men and women of the first quality, ecclesiastics, 
aud others who were lovers of church music, to be admitted into this corpora- 
tion, and they gave large gratuities for the support or education of many per- 
sons in the practice of that science. Their public feasts were frequent and 
celebrated with singing and music ; most commonly at Guildhall chapel or col- 
lege. (Stowe's Survey Lond. ut supra, lib. v. p. 231.) Before the reformation 
this society was constantly hired to assist as a choir at the magnificent funerals 
of the nobility or other distinguished personages, which were celebrated within 
the city of London or in its neighbourhood. The splendid ceremonies of their 
annual procession and mass in the year 1554, are thus related by Strype from 
an old Chronicle, " May the sixth was a goodly evensong at Guildhall college, 
by the masters of the darks and their fellowship, with singing aud playing, and 
the morrow after was a great mass, at the same place, and by the same frater- 
nity ; when every dark oiFered an halfpenny. The mass was sung by divers of 
the Queen's (Mary) chapel, and children. And after mass done every dark 
went their procession, two and two together; each having on a surplice and a 
rich cope, and a garland. And then, fourscore standards, streamers, and ban- 
ners ; and each one that bore them had at) alb or a surplice. Then came in 
order the waits playing: and then thirty clarkes siu^festa dies. There were 
four of these choirs. Then came a canopy, borne over the sacrament by four 
of the masters of the clarkes with staffe, torches burning, &c." (Strype's Eccles. 
Mem. vol. iii. c. xiii. p. 121.) Their profession, employment, and character, 
naturally dictated to this spiritual brotherhood the representation of plays, es- 
pedally those of the scriptural kind : and their constant practice in shews, pro- 



209 

The religious guild, or fraternity of Corpus Christi at York, 
was obliged annually to perform a Corpus Christi Play. Drake 
says, that this ceremony must have been in its time one of the most 
extraordinary entertainments the city could exhibit ; and would 
necessarily draw a great concourse of people out of the country 



cessions, and vocal mnsic, easily accounts for tlieir address in detaining the last 
company which England afforded in the fourteenth century at a religious farce 
for more than a week.' — IVarton, vol. ii. p. 397. 

I can find no registries of the parish of Clerkenwell, early enough to supply 
any trace respecting the playing of the Parish Clerks. From the poor's-rate- 
books I took a few extracts, which, as shewing the number of houses rated , 
and the quality of some of the ancient inhabitants, may be interesting, per- 
haps, to certain readers. In the oldest, for the year 1666, the only places 
mentioned, and the number of houses assessed in each place are as fol- 
lows: Islington, 47. St, John Street, (or Swan Alley) 43. St. John's Lane, 
41. Garden Alley, 23. St. Johns's, 17. Clerkenwell Greene, 47. Turnmill 
Street, 112. Bowleing Alley, 15. Street-side, 4. Clerkenwell Cloase, 43. 
The Fields, 8. Out-landlords, 18 — Total, 418. The assessments were by lunar 
months. In this rate-book, there are the following names among the inhabi- 
tants ; the sums to each are their monthly assessments. The Earle of Carlisle, 
8s. The Earle of Essex, 8s. The Earle of Ailesbury, what he plcaseth according 
to his desire (10s.). The Lord Barkely, 7s. The Lord Townsend, at his ho- 
nour's pleasure. Lady Ciofts, 3s. 6d. The Lord Dellawar, 2s. 6d. Lady Word- 
ham, 2s. Sir John Keeleing, referred to his honoufs pleasure. Sir John Crop- 
ley, 6s. Sir Edward Bannister, 3s. 6rf. Sir Nicholas Stroude, 2s. Sir Gower 
Barrington, 2s. Dr. King, 2s. 6rf. Dr. Sloane, 8d.— In the rate-books for 1667 
and 8, are the following additional names : The Duke of Newcastle, (not as- 
sessed). Lord Baltimore, 4s. 6d. Lady Wright, 4s. Lady Mary Dormer, 4s. 
Lady Wyndham, 2s. Sir Erasmus Smith, 4s. Sir Richard Cliverton, 4s. Sir 
John Burdish, 3s. 8d. Sir Goddard Nelthrope, 3s. Sir John King, 3s. Sir 
William Bowles, 2s. 6d. Sir William Boulton, 2s. 6d. The Mannour house in 
' the Fields' was assessed at 6d. There were several bowling-greens in Clerk- 
enwell. The monthly assessment of* Mr. Briscoe, at the Ram, in Smithfield, 
for a felled and bowling-alley in this parish,' was Is. 6d. 

In 1708, when Hatton wrote his ' View of London,' Clerkenwell contained 
1146 houses. In the present year, 1822, the parish-books rate about 6000. 
Hatton says, that Isabella Sackville, the last prioress of Clerkenwell, died 
2lst October, 1570, and was buried in the old church, destroyed by fire 
about thirty years ago, with her effigies in brass on a gravestone. Also, 
beneath a curious tomb, Sir William Weston, the last Lord Prior of St. 



210 

to see it. Every trade in the city, from the highest to the lowest^ 
was obliged to furnish out a pageant at its own expense on this 
occasion. The subjects were from the history of the Old and 
New Testament, and each trade represented some particular 
part, and spoke suitable verses. Many orders and ordinances, ex- 
isting in the city's registers, regulate the performance of this reli- 
gious ceremony. One of these recites, that Whereas for a long 
course of time the artificers and tradesmen of the city of York, 
have, at their own expense, acted plays ; and particularly a certain 
sumptuous play, exhibited in several pageants, wherein the history 
of the Old and New Testament, in divers places of the said city, in 
the feat of Corporis Christie by a solemn procession, is represented 
in reverence to the sacrament of the body of Christ ; beginning first 
at the great gates of the priory of the holy Trinity in York, and so 
going in procession to, and into the cathedral church of the same, 
and afterwards to the hospital of St. Leonard, in York, leaving the 
aforesaid sacrament in that place ; preceded by a vast number of 
lighted torches, and a great multitude of priests in their proper 
habits, and followed by the mayor and citizens, with a prodigious 
crowd of the populace attending: And further reciting, that 
whereas, upon this, a certain very religious father, William Mel- 
ton, of the order of the Friars Minors, professor of Holy Page- 
antry, and a most famous preacher of the word of God, coming 
to the city, in several sermons recommended the aforesaid play to 
the people, affirming that it was good in itself, and very commend- 
able so to do ; yet also said, that the citizens of the said city, and 
other foreigners coming to the said feast, had greatly disgraced the 



John of Jerusalem, who, upon its dissolution, was allowed 1,000^ per ann. for 
life, but died, it was supposed of grief, on May the 7th, 1540, the very day the 
house was dissolved. John Weever, the antiquary, author of the Funeral Monu- 
ments, was likewise buried there, with a monument and inscription, declaring, 
that 

wheresoe'er a ruin'd tomb he found 

His pen hath built it new out of the ground, 



911 

play by revellings, drunkenness, shouts, songs, and other inso- 
lences, little regarding the divine offices of the said day, and what 
was to be lamented, losing for that reason the indulgences by the 
holy father Pope Urban IV. graciously conceded : Therefore, (as 
it seemed most wholesome to the said father William) the people 
of the city w^ere inclined that the play should be played on one 
day, and the procession on another, so that people might attend 
divine service at the churches on the said feast, for the indulgences 
aforesaid : Wherefore, Peter Buckey, mayor of the city, Richard 
Russell, late mayor of the staple of York, with the sheriffs, alder- 
men, and others, of the number of the twenty-four, being met 
in the council chamber on the 6th of June, 1426, and by the 
said wholesome exhortations and admonitions of the said father 
William, being incited that it is no crime, nor can it offend God 
if good be converted into better ; and having diligently considered 
of the premises, unanimously determined to convene the citizens 
together in common-hall, for the purpose of having their consent 
that the premises should be better reformed ; whereupon the 
mayor so convened the citizens on the 10th of the same month, 
and made solemn proclamation that the play of Corpus Christi 
should be played every year on the vigil of the said feast, and the 
procession made on the day of the feast.' A solemn proclama- 
tion for the play of Corpus Christi, made on the aforesaid 
vigil, commands on behalf of the king, the mayor, and the sheriffs 
of the city, that no man go armed to the disturbance of the peace 
and the play, and the hindering of the procession, but that they 
leave their weapons at their inns, upon pain of forfeiture of their 
weapons, and imprisonment of their bodies, save the keepers of 
the pageants and officers of the peace \ that the players in (he 
pageants play at the places assigned, and no where else, on pain 
of forty shillings ; that men of the crafts, and all others that find 
torches, come forth in array as in manner aforetime; that the 
craftsmen bring forth their pageants in order and course, by good 
players well arrayed, and openly speaking, upon pain of one hun- 
dred shillings, to be paid to the chamber without pardon ; and that 
every player be ready in his pageant at convenient time, that is to 



'212 

say, at the (first) betwixt four and five of the clock in the morning, 
and then all other pageants following, each after the other in order, 
without delay, upon pain of six shillings and eight pence. William 
Bowes, mayor, by regulation, dated the 7th cf June, 1417> or- 
dains, that all the pageants of the play of Corpus Christi should 
be brought forth in order by the artificers of die city of York, and 
begin to play first at the gates of the priory of the holy Trinity 
in Mikelgate, next at the door of Robert Harpham, next at the 
door of the late John Gyseburn, next at Skelder-gate-hend and 
'North-strete-hendf next at the end of Conyng-strete towards Cas- 
tel-gate, next at the end of Jubir-gate, next at the door of Henry 
Wyman deceased in Conyng-stretej then at the Common-hall 
at the end of Conynge-strete, then at the door of Adam del Brigs, 
deceased, in Stayne-gate, then at the end of Stayn-gate at the 
Minster-gates f then at the end of Girdler-gate in Peter-gate, 
and lastly, upon the Pavement, &c. And father William de 
Melton, willing to destroy sin, and a great lover of virtue, having, 
by preaching, exhorted the populace that they would cause to be 
removed ail public concubines in fornication or adultery, where- 
fore the mayor, by consent of the community, ordained that they 
should depart the city within eight days, on pain of imprisonment, 
unless any of them should find good security that she would not 
exercise her illegal vocation for the future. 

It appears from the regulation of the pageants for this play at 
York, in the mayoralty of William Alne, in 1415, compiled by 
Roger Burton, the town-clerk, that they were fifty-four in number. 
They commenced with * God the Father Almighty, creating and 
forming the heavens, angels, archangels, Lucifer, and the angels 
that fell with him into hell ;' the tanners performed this : the next, 
being ' God the Father in his own substance, creating the earth, 
and all which is therein, in the space of five days,' was represented 
by the plasterers : the third ' God the F'ather creating Adam of 
the slime of the earth, and making Eve of the rib, and inspiring 
them with the spirit of life,' was played by the card-makers : the 
fifty-fourth, ' Jesus, Mary, twelve apostles, four angels with 
trumpets, and four with a lance with two scourges, four good, and 



213 

four bad spirits, and six devils,* was performed by the mercers. 
The town-c1erk*s entry mentions the torches and torch-bearers in 
the procession: ' Porters, eight torches; coblers, four torches; 
cordwaners, fourteen torches ; cottellers, two torches ; wevers, 
— torches; carpenters, six torches; chaloners, four torches; 
fullers, four torches ; girdellers, — torches ; taillers, — torches ; 
fifty- eight citizens had torches alike on the day of Corpus Christi; 
and it was ordained that the porters and coblers should go 
first ; then of the right the wevers and cordwaners ; on the left 
the fullers, cutlers, girdellers, chaloners, carpenters, and taillours ; 
then the better sort of citizens ; and after, the twenty-four (com- 
mon councilnien), the twelve (aldermen), the mayor, and four 
torches of Mr. Thomas Buckton.' 

The fraternity of Corpus Christi at York was very popular. 
Several hundreds of persons were annually admitted, and it was 
supported chiefly by the annual collection made at the proces- 
sion. The religious ceremony of the Corpus Christi play and pro- 
cession was instituted there about the year 1*250; it was to be 
celebrated each year on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday ; and this 
play, as a piece of religious pageantry, was so much esteemed 
that it was acted in that city till the twenty-sixth year of Queen 
EHzabeth, 1584.* The mode of performing the Mysteries at 
York is thus minutely particularized, in order to convey some 
notion of the general method of representing them in other cities: 
there is little doubt that the corporations strove to outvie each 
other in the elaboration and splendor of their exhibitions. 

Corpus Christi day, at Newcastle upon Tyne, was celebrated 
with similar exhibitions by the incorporated trades. The earliest 
mention of the performance of mysteries there, is in the ordinary 
of the coopers for 1426. In 1437, the barbers played the Bap- 
tizing of Christ. In l56S,the Offering of Abraham and Isaac was 
exhibited by the slaters. By the ordinary of the goldsmiths, 
plumbers, glaziers, pewterers, and painters, dated 1536^ they were 

a Drake's York, p. 223, 246. App. p. xxix. The town clerk's order for the 
pageants of the play is set out at length in the Appendix. 

2 D 



^214 

commanded to play at their feast ' the three kings of Coleyu/ In 
the books of the fullers and dyers, one of the charges for the play 
of 1561, is, ' Item for 3 yard and a**, lyn cloth for God's coat, 
3s» 9,d. ob.' From the ordinary of different trades it seems that 
about 1578, the Corpus Christi plays were on the decline, and 
never acted but by a special command of the magistrates of New- 
castle. They are spoken of as the general plays of the town of 
Newcastle, and when thought necessary by the mayor to be set 
forth and played, the millers were to perform the Deliverance of 
Israel ; the house-carpenters, the Burial of Christ ; the masons, 
the Burial of our lady Saint Mary the Virgin. Between the first 
and last mentioned periods, there are many minutes in the trades' 
books of the acting in different years, which may be seen in 
Brand's History of Newcastle, together with the only vestige 
that remains of the Newcastle Mysteries, entitled, ^ Noah's Ark, 
or the shipwright's ancient play, or dirge,' wherein God, an 
Angel, Noah and his wife, and the Devil, are the characters. In 
this, as well as the Chester Mystery of the same subject, the wife 
of Noah is a vixen ; the last words she says to him, are. 
The devil of hell thee speed 
To ship when thou shalt go. 
The performance of miracle plays is noticed in the ancient 
piece written against the mendicant friars, entitled, Peres the 
Ploughman's Crede — 

We haunten no tauernes, ne hobelen abouten 
At marketer, and miracles we medely vs neuer.* 

Chaucer, also, in the Wife of Bath's Prologue, makes her say- 
Therefore made 1 ray Visitations 
To Vigilis and to Processions, 
To prechings eke, and to Pilgrimagis, 
To plays of Miracles and Manages, 
And werid on me my gay skarlit gites, &c.b 

Lydgate, the monk of Bury, and the follower of Chaucer, as 
his disciple at an immeasurable distance, composed ^ a procession 
of pageants from the creation.' *^ 

a Ed. 1553. Si^. Biij. ^ Chaucer, Urry's Ed. p. 80. 1. 555 9.' 

c Ritson's Bibliog. Poetica, p. 79. 



215 

III the reign of Henry VII. 1487, that king, in his castle of 
Winchester, was entertained on a Sunday while at dinner with 
the performance of Christ's Descent into Hell, by the choir boys 
of Hyde Abbey and St. Swilhin's Priory, two large monasteries 
there ;^ and in the same reign, 1489, there were shows and cere- 
monies, and (religious) plays, exhibited in the palace at West- 
minster.'^ 

On the feast of St. Margaret, in 1511, the Miracle play of the 
holy Martyr St. George, was acted on a stage in an open field at 
Bassingborne, in Cambridgeshire, at which were a minstrel and 
three waits hired from Cambridge, with a property-man and a 
painter.*^ 

It appears from the Earl of Northumberland's Household 
Book, (1 5 i2j) that the children of his chapel performed Mysteries 
during the twelve days of Christmas, and at Easter, under the 
direction of his Master of the revels. Bishop Percy cites several 
particulars of the regulated sums payable to ' parsones' and others 
for these performances. The exhibiting scripture dramas on the 
great festivals entered into the regular establishment, and formed 
part of the domestic regulations of our ancient nobility ; and what 
is more remarkable, it was as much the business of the chaplain 
in those days to compose Plays for the family, as it is now for 
him to make sermons.*' 

At London, in the year 1556, the Passion of Christ was per- 
formed at the Grey Friars before the Lord Mayor, the privy- 
council, and many great estates of the realm. In 1577, the 
same play was performed at the same place, on the day that 
war was proclaimed in London against France ; and in that 
year, the holiday of St. Olave, the patron of the church in Sil- 
ver Street dedicated to that saint, being celebrated with great 
solemnity, at eight o'clock at night, a play of the miraculous life 
of St. Olave, was performed for four hours, and concluded with 
many religious plays. The acting of religious plays experienced 

a Warton, vol. ii. p. 206. 

^ Ibid* p. 239. <= Antiq. Repert. and Warton, vol. iii. p. 326, 

•* Percy's Reliques, vol. i. p. 139. 



216 

interruption during the reign of Elizabeth, and occasionally at 
other periods. Malone thinks that the last Mystery represented 
in England was that of Christ's Passion, in the reign of king 
James I. Prynne relates that it was performed at Ely House, in 
Holborn, when Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, lay there, 
on Good Friday, at night, and that thousands were present-^ 

a Prynne mentions this performance in his Histrio-mastix, thePlayer's scourge, 
w Actor's Tragedy, 4to. 1633, p. 117, n. 

For this work Prynne was pilloried and fined on a star-chamber prosecu- 
tion. Some fourteen years afterwards there came out a tract entitled, * Mr. 
William Prynne, his Defence of Stage Plaijs, or a Retractation of a 
former book of his called Histrio-Mastix, 1649,' four leaves, 4to. This piece 
begins with, ' Whereas this Tyrannicall abominable lewd schismaticall haeretical 
Army, are bent in a wilfull and forcible way to destroy all Lawfull Govern- 
ment;' it recites the violence Prynne endured by arrest, ' for no oflfence but 
onely endeavouring to discharge my conscience, which is a thing I shall always 
do, without fearing any man, any arm of flesh, any Potentacie, Prelacy, super- 
intendency, or power terrestriall or internall :' then it proceeds to say, that 
* now there is another fresh occasion which hath incited my just indignation 
against this wicked and Tyrannical Army ; they did lately in a most inhumane, 
cruell, rough, and barbarous manner take away the poor Players from their 
Houses, being there met to discharge the duty of their callings.' After in- 
veighing against this proceeding it adds, * But now I know what the malicious, 
ill-spoken, clamorous and obstreperous people will object against me ; namely, 
That I did once write a book against Stage-plays called Histrio-mastix , for 
which I underwent a cruel censure in the Starchamber. I confesse it is true, 
I did once so, but it was when I had not so clear a light as now I have ; and it 
is no disparagement for any man to alter his judgement upon better informa- 
tion ; besides it was done long ago, and when the king (whose virtues I did not 
then so perfectly understand,) governed without any controul, which was the 
time that I took to shew my conscience and courage, to oppose that power 
which was the highest.' After more of the same kind, it says, ' But that 
Piayes are lawfull things, and are to be allowed as recreation for honest men, 
I need not quote many authors to prove it j' and then twelve are quoted ; and 
it being objected that actors personated females, it declares, that ' men's putting 
on of women's apparel is not against the Scripture in a plain and ordinary sence.' 
Finally, ' I may conclude that good Piayes which are not profane, lewd, bad, 
blasphemous, or ungodly, may be acted ; and that this wicked and Tyrannical 
Army ought not to hinder, io impede, let, prohibit, or forbid the acting of 
them ; which I dare maintain to all the world ; for I was never afrayed to suf- 
fer in a good cause.' With these words the pamphlet ends, but not the story. 
For after this publication a large posting bill, dated * From the King's Head 



217 

In Cornwall they had interludes in the Cornish language from 
scripture history. These were called the Guary Miracle plays, 
and were sometimes performed in the open fields, at the bottom 
of earthen amphitheatres, the people standing around on the in- 
clined plane, which was usually forty or fifty feet diameter. The 
players did not learn their pares, but were followed by a prompter, 
called the ordinary, with the book in his hand. Long after the 
mysteries had ceased elsewhere, and the regular stage been esta- 
blished, they were exhibited in Cornwai! to the country people, 
who flocked from ail sides to hear and see the devils and devices 
that were provided to delight the eye, as well as the ear. Two 
MSS. in the Bodleian Library contain the Cornish Plays of the 
Deluge, the Passion, and the Resurrection.^ 

According to Strutt, when mysteries were the only plays, the 
stage consisted of three platforms, one above another. On the 
uppermost sat God the Father, surrounded by his angels; on 
the second the glorified saints, and on the last and lowest, men 
who had not yet passed from this life. On one side of the lowest 
platform was the resemblance of a dark pitchy cavern, from 
whence issued the appearance of fire and flames; and when it was 
necessary, the audience was treated with hideous yellings and noises 
in imitation of the howlings and cries of wretched souls torment- 
ed by relentless demons. From this yawning cave the devils 
themselves constantly ascended to delight, and to instruct the 
spectators. The reader will doubtless recollect that a theatrical 
Hell has been mentioned before '^^^ an old author, whose descrip- 

in the Strand,' signed ^ William Prynne,' and headed ' The Vindication,' 
recites the title of the pamphlet, and declares it Mo be a mere forgery and 
imposture^' The style of the * Retractation,' so thoroughly imitates Prynne's 
that nothing in it but the stultification of his general opinions could occasion a 
doubt of its genuineness ; and the imposition might still pass pretty current 
if one of Prynne's bills were not in existence. A copy of this fierce denial is in 
Mr. J. P. Collier's Poetical Decameron, vol. ii. p. 322. As Mr. Collier says of 
the Pseudo-Pry nne, that it is a rarity which he had never seen, I thought an 
extract from such a curiosity worth a corner. 

a Borlase's Antiq. Cornwall, p. 195. Borlase's Nat. Hist. CornwaU, p. 295. 
Carew's Cornwall, p. 71. 

^ In the account of the mystery of Veximiel, p. 173, ante. 



218 

tion of Hell is similar, had probably seen it exhibited ou the 

ecclesiastical stage : — 

An hideous hole all vaste, withouten shape, 
Of endlesse depth, orewbelm'd with ragged stoiiei 
With ongly mouth, and griesly iawes doth gape, 
And to our sight coufoonds itselfe in one.* 

The Mysteries were usually acted in churches or chapels upon 
temporary scaffolds : when enough performers could not be found 
among the clergy, the churchwardens employed secular players, 
and sometimes borrowed dresses from other parishes.'' 

^ The Pageant of the Company oj Sheremen and Taylors in 
Coventry y as performed by them on the Festival of Corpus 
Christif is a manuscript belonging to the Corporation of Co- 
ventry, bearing the following inscription : * Thys matter newly 
correct^ be Robart Croo, the xiiij^'\ day of Marche, fenysschid in 
the yere of owre lord god M ccccc & xxxiiij*^.' A Coventry 
gentleman, of curious research in ancient lore, who was allowed to 
transcribe it, printed * twelve copies, for the purpose of bringing 
it more immediately to the knowledge of his antiquarian friends/ « 
Its events are from the Annunciation, to the murder of the Inno- 
cents. Isaiah speaks the Prologue, and prophesies the incarna- 
tion. Joseph's Jealousy being a conspicuous scene, a portion is 
extracted for comparison with the same subject in Mystery V. 

Joseph, perceiving the Virgin's pregnancy, taxes her with in- 
constancy, in his absence ; and inquires who had been with her. 
She asserts her innocence, and affirms that she had seen no one, 
but the heavenly messenger. 
Josoff, — Sey not soo, womou, for schame ley be, 

Ye be with chyld, soo wondurs grett. 

Ye nede no more th'r of to tret 

Agense all right ; 

Forsothe thys chylde, dame, ys not myne ; 

Alas ! that eyv* with myn yne, 

I suid see this syght. 

a Mirrour for Magistrates — Sackvil's Induction. b Strutt's Sports, p. 144. 
"= Printed at Coventry, 1817, 22 leaves, 4to. In the summer of 1819, I was 
obligingly indulged with the loan of a copy, and permitted extracts. 



^19 

Tell me, womon, whose ys this chyld ? 
Mare, — None but youfis, husebond soo myld, 

And thatt schalbe seyne. 
Josoff. — But myne, alias! alas! why sey ye soo? 

Wele awey, womon ; now may I goo 

Be gyld, as many a nothur ys. 
Mare. — Na, truly sir, ye be not be gylde, 

Nor yet, with spott of syn, I am no defylde ; 

Trust yt well huse bonde. 
Josoff, — Huse bond ! in feythe, and that acold [ 

A weylle awey, JosofF! as thovv ar' olde, 

Lyke a fole, now ma I stand and truse. 

But in feyth, mare, th'u art in syn, 

Soo moche ase J have cheyrischyd the dame, and ail 

thei kyn, 
Be liynd my bake to sVe me thus. 

All olde men Insampull take be me. 

How I am be gylid, here may you see, 

To wed soo yong a chyld. 

Now fare well, Mare, I leyve the here alone, 

Worthe the dam and thy warkis ycheone ; 

For I woll noo more be gylid be, for frynd nor fooe. 

Now of this ded I am soo dull, 

And off my lyfF I am so full, no farthur ma I goo. 

An Angel, whose explanation removes Joseph's jealousy, de- 
sires him to comfort Mary, for, 

a cleyne meydin ys sche 

Sche hath conseyved with owt any trayne 
The seycond p'son in trenete. 

The homely adoration of the infant by the Shepherds is prettily 
told. The first Shepherd gives his pipe to him, and says, 

I have nothyng to present with thi chylde 

But my pype ; hold ! hold ! take yt in thy bond. 

Where in moche pleysure that I have fond. 

The second Shepherd presents his hat— * 



220 

Holde ! take thow, here, my halt on thy hedde. 
And now, off won thyng, thow art well sped. 

The third Shepherd offers his gloves to him — 

Have here my myttens, to pytt en thi hondis, 
Other ireysure have I none to present the with.^ 

With reference to theatrical performances by the clergy, it is 
affirmed in the Beehive of. the Romish Church, that ' Christ 
hath not done anie thing in his death and passion, but they do plaie 
and counterfeite the same after him, so trimlie and livelie, that no 
plaier nor juggler is able to doe it better. Yea, do we not see 



a On closing the notice of the Coventry Mysteries, it may be observed, that 
there can be no doubt that Adam and Eve appeared on the stage naked. In 
the second Pageant of the Coventry MS. at the British Museum, Eve on being 
seduced by the serpent, induces Adam to taste the forbidden fruit. He imme- 
diately perceives their nakedness, and says to her, 

Se us nakyd be for & be hynde, 

% * * % 

Woman ley this leflf on thi pryvy te 
And with this leff I shall hyde me. 

Warton observes, (vol. i. p. 244.) ' That this extraordinary spectacle was 
beheld by a numerous company of both sexes with great composure : they had 
the authority of scripture for such a representation, and they gave matters just 
as they found them in the third chapter of Genesis.' They are also naked in 
the Chester Mystery, and clothe themselves in the same way. 

' The present age rejects as gross and indeHcate those free compositions 
which our ancestors not only countenanced but admired. Yet, in fact, the 
morals of our forefathers were as strict and perhaps purer and sounder than 
our own ; and we have been taught to look up to them as genuine models of 
the honest, incorruptible character of Englishmen. They were strangers in- 
deed to delicacy of taste ; they beheld the broad and unpruned delineations of 
nature, and thought no harm : while we, on the most distant approach to free- 
dom of thought and expression, turn away in disgust, aud vehemently express 
our displeasure. Human nature is ever the same, but society is always pro- 
gressive, and at every stage of refinement the passions require stricter control ; 
not because they are more violent, but because the circumstances which excite 
them are multiplied. If we trace back the progress of society to its primitive 
state, we shall find that the innocence of mankind is in an inverse ratio to their 
advancemeut in knowledge.' — CromeWs Remains, p. 70. 



221 

likewise, that uppon good Friday they haue a Crucifixe, either of 
wood, or of stone, which they laie downe softlie vpon the ground, 
that euerie bodie, may come creeping to it, vpon handes and 
knees, and so kisse the feet of it, as men are accustomed to doe to 
the Pope of Rome: And then they put him in a graue, till 
Easter : at which time they take him uppe againe, and sing Re- 
surrexit, non est hie, Alleluia: He is risen, he is not here, God 
be thanked. Yea, and in some places, they make the graue in a 
hie place in the church where men must goe up manie steppes, 
which are decked with blacke cloth from aboue to beneath, and 
vpon euery steppe standeth a siluer candlesticke with a waxe 
candle burning in it, and there doe waike souldiours in harnesse, 
as bright as Saint George, which keepe the graue, till the priests 
come and take him vp ; and then commeth sodenlie a flash of 
fire, wherwith they are all afraid and fall downe : and then 
vpstartes the man, and they begin to sing Alleluia, on all hands, 
and then the clock striketh eleuen. Then a gaine vpon Whit- 
sunday they begin to play a new Enterlude, for then they send downe 
a Doue out of an Owles nest, deuised in the roof of the church : 
but first they cast out rosin and gunpouder, w\ wilde fire, to make 
the children afraid, and that must needes be the holie ghost, which 
commeth with thunder and lightening. Likewise vpon Ascension 
day, they pull Christ vp on hie w*. ropes aboue the clouds, by a 
vice deuised in the roofe of the church, and they hale him vp, as 
if they would pull him vp to the gallowes : and there stande the 
poore Priests, and looke so pitifully after their God, as a dogge 
for his dinner. In summe a man doeth often spende a pennie or 
two to see a play of Robin hood, or a Morisse daunse, which 
were a greate deale better bestowed vppon these apishe toies of 
these good Priests, which counterfeite all these matters so hand- 
somelie, that it will do a man as much good to see them, as in 
frostie weather to goe naked. I speake not of their perambula- 
tions, processions, and going about the towne, cariing their cru- 
cefixes alongst the streetes, and there play and counterfeite the 
whole passion, so trimlie with all the seuen sorrowes of our Lady, 

2 E 



222 



as though it had been nothing else but a simple and plain Enter, 
lude/* 



• Beehive of the Romish Church, p. 201. 

The quotation from this curious work is illustrated by the following notices: 
— 1 . Creeping to the Cross.— It is related in Davies^s Rites of the Cathedral of Dw» 
ham, (8vo. 1672, p. 51.) that in that cathedral, over our Lady of Bolton's altar, 
there uas u marvtllous, lively, and beautiful image of tlie picture of our lady, 
called the Lady of Bolton, which picture was made to open with gimmes^ (or 
linked fas?enings) from the breast downward ; and within the said image was 
wrought and pictured the image of our Saviour maFvellously finely gilt, holding 
up his hands, and holding betwixt his hands a large fair Crucifix of Christ, all 
of gold; the which Cnicitix was to be taken forth every Good Friday, and every 
man did creep unto it that was in the church at that time ; and afterwards it was 
hung up again within the said image ; and every principal day the said image 
was opened, that every man might see pictured within her, the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost, most curiously and finely gilt ; and both the sides 
within her were very finely varnished with green varnish, and flowers of gold, 
which was a goodly sight for all the beholders thereof. — It is further stated, by 
the same author, (p. 21.) that within that cathedral, upon Good Friday, there 
was marvellous solemn service, in which service time, after the Passion was 
sung, two of the ancient monks took a goodly large crucifix, all of gold, of the 
picture of our Saviour Christ nailed upon the Cross, laying it upon a velvet 
cushion, having St. Cuthbert's arms upon it, all embroidered with gold, bringing 
it betwixt them upon the cushion to the lowest greeses, or steps in the quire, 
and there betwixt theai did hold the said picture of our Saviour, sitting on 
either side of ii. And then one of the said monks did rise, and went a pretty 
space from it, and setting himself upon his knees with his shoes put off, very 
reverently he crept upon his knees unto the said cross, and most reverently did 
kiss it ; and after Inm the other monk did so likewise, and then they sate down 
on either side of the said cross, holding it betwixt them. Afterward, the prior 
came forth of his stall, and did sit him down upon his knees with his shoes off 
in like sort, and did creep also unto the said cross, and all the monks after him, 
one after another in the same manner and order ; in the mean time, the whole 
quire singing a hymn. The service being ended, the said two monks carried 
the cross to tbe sepulchre with great reverence. — There are some accounts of 
creeping to the cross in Brand's Popular Antiquities, (vol. i. p. 129.). He 
mentions, trom an ancient Ceremonial of the kings of England, that on Good 
Friday, the usher was to lay a carpet for the king to creep to the cross upon, and 
that the qut ea ami her ladies were also to creep. 

2. Making of the Sepulchre was a practice founded upon ancient tradition, that 
the second coming of Christ would be on Easter-eve, and therefore Jerome 
conceived that the people should await in the church until midnight for Christ's 



223 

This citation from the Bee-hive is in part exemplified by a 
translation, printed hy Copland, from an ancient novel in Dutch, 



appearauce. The niakiiig of the sepulchre in the church, and watching it, re- 
mained in Ei)gl.tnd till the reformation, Davies^s account of it is worth no. 
tice. Ii; the abbey church of Durham, tliere was very solemn service upon 
Easter-day, betwixt tliree and four o'clock in the morning, in honour of the 
Resurrection; when two of the eldest monks of the quire came to the Sepulchre, 
setup upon Good Friday after the Passion, all covered vrith red velvet, and 
embroidered with gold, and then did cense it, either of the monks with a pair 
of silver censers, sitting on their knees before the sepulchre. Then they both 
rising, came to the sepulchre, out of which, with great reverence, they took a 
marvellous beautiful image of our Saviour, representing the Resurrection with a 
cross in his hand, in the breast whereof was inclosed, in most bright crystal, 
the holy Sacrament of the altar, through the which crystal the blessed Host was 
conspicuous to the beholders. Then after the elevation of the said picture, 
carried by the said two monks, upon a fair velvet cushion all embroidered, 
singing the anthem of Christus resurgens, they brought it to the high altar set- 
ting it on the midst thereof, the two monks kneeling before the altar, and cens- 
ing it all the time that the rest of the whole quire were singing the aforesaid 
antheui ; which anthem being ended, the two monks took up the cushion and 
picture from the altar, supporting it betwixt them, and proceeding in proces- 
sion from the high altar to the south quire door, where there were four ancient 
gentlemen belonging to the quire, appointed to attend their coming, holding up 
a most rich canopy of purple velvet, tasselled round about with red silk, and a 
goodly gold fringe; and at every corner of the canopy did stand one of these 
ancient gentlemen, to bear it over the said images with the holy sacrament 
carried by the two monks round about the church, the whole quire waiting 
upon it with goodly torches, and great store of other lights ; all singing, re- 
joicing, and praying to God most devoutly till they came to the high altar 
again; upon which they placed the said image, there to remain till ascension 
day. 

3. The Play of Robin Hood was a performance in the May games, in which a 
person, representing that bold outlaw, presided as Lord of the May, attended 
by Maid Marian, his faithful mistress, as Lady of the May, and by persons ap- 
propriately dressed, denominated Robin Hood's men. Bishop Latimer com- 
plains, in one of his Sermons, that coming to preach in a certain town on a 
holiday, he found the church-door locked, and was told the parish could not 
hear him that day, for they were gone to gather for Robin Hood, it being 
Robin Hood s day. The good Bishop says, that for all his rochet, he was fain 
to give place to Robin Hood. King Henry VIII. was entertained with a May 
game at Shooter's-hill by the officers of bis guards, amounting to two hundred, 
clothed in green, headed by one who personated Robin Hood. He met the 



2U 
entitled, ' a metji 3ie^t of a man tijat toasS calleti tt»iole0faj^/ 

(in the original Ulenspiegle). ^ Bishop Percy cites it to the 
following effect. Owlglass, whose waggish tricks are the 
subject of this work, after many adventures, comes to live with 
a priest who makes him his parish clerk. This priest is de- 
scribed as keeping a concubine, who had but one eye, to whom 
Owlglass owed a grudge for revealing his rogueries to his master. 
At Easter, when the Resurrection was to be played to the illite- 
rate people, the priest took his concubine and put her in the se- 
pulchre to personate an angel. Upon this, Owlglass provided 
three of the simplest persons in the town to play the three Maries ; 
the parson himself was to play Christ with a banner in his hand, 
Owlglass then said to his three simple performers, when the 
angel inquires whom you seek, you are to say the parson's con- 
cubine with one eye. At the proper part of the representation 
the Angel duly inquired whom they sought, who answered as the 
waggish parish clerk taught them, ' The priest's concubine with 
one eye.' The woman hearing this, appears to have suspected 
Owlglass, for, rising from the grave, she aimed a blow at his 
cheek, which missed him, and fell upon one of the men per- 
sonating the three Maries, who immediately returning it, she 
seized him by the hair. The man's wife ran up to assist her 
husband ; the priest himself threw down his banner to help his 



king as lie was taking his morning ride, attended by the queen, and nobility 
of both sexes, and inviting his majesty to see how he and his companions lived, 
the royal train was forthwith conducted by the archers, blowing their horns, to 
a green wood under the hill, and ushered into an arbour of boughs, formed into 
chambers covered with fiowers and sweet herbs, where Robin Hood excusing 
the want of more delicate refreshment said to the king, * Sir, we outlaws, 
usually breakfast upon venison, and have no other food to you ;' and the king 
and queen sat down, and were served with venison and wine. They were well 
pleased with llieir entertainment, and on their departure were met by two 
ladies, splendidly apparelled, as the Lady May and the Lady Flora, riding in 
a rich open chariot, who, saluting the king with divers goodly songs, brought 
him to Green wich. A Plajj of Robin Hood for the May Games, is in Dodsley's 
collection. — StrutVs Spoi'ls, p. 314. 

a Percy's Reliques of Anc. Eng. Poetry, vol. i. p. 132. 



225 

concubine ; a general conflict ensued ; and Owlglass seeing them 
all together by the ears in the body of the church, went his way 
from the village and returned no more.* Bishop Percy thinks the 
general name of Mysteries was applied to these performances 
from the mysterious subjects that were frequeaitly chosen for re- 
presentation, such as the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection 
of Christ, &c. 

Warton quotes from Lambarde's Topographical Dictionary, 
written about the year 1570, that during the days of ceremonial 
religion, the priests at Witney, in Oxfordshire, used to exhibit a 
puppet-show of The Resurrection, &c. The puppets represented 
Christ, Mary, and other personages ; one of them in the charac- 
ter of a waking watchman, espying Christ to arise, made a con- 
tinual noise, like the sound caused by the meeting of two sticks, 
and was therefore commonly called Jack Snacker of Wytney. 
Lambarde, when a child, saw the like toy in St. Paul's Cathedral, 
London, on the feast of Whitsuntide ; where the Descent of the 
Holy Ghost was performed by a white pigeon being let to fly out 
of a hole in the midst of the roof of the great isle. The pigeon with 
a long censer, which came down from the same place almost to the 
ground, was swung up and down at such a length, that it reached 
with one sweep almost to the west-gate of the church, and with 
the other to the choir stairs ; the censer breathing out over the 
whole church and the assembled multitude a most pleasant per- 
fume from the sweet things that burnt within it. Lambarde says 
that the like dumb-shows were used every where, to garnish sundry 
parts of the church service ; with spectacles of the nativity, passion, 
and ascension. 

After the Reformation, king Edward VL wrote a comedy cal- 
led the Whore oj Babylon, An incredible number of religious 

a There is a copy of Howleglas in the British Museiini. Bishop Percy, who 
appears to have used Garrick's copy, remarks that ' Howleglas is said in the 
preface to have died in M,cccc,l : at the end of the book, in M,ccc,l.' 

When a boy I read the Adventures of UUespiegel, or the German Rogue, in a 
translation, printed in octavo, and I should think, from what I recollect of ita 
appearance, about 1680. A copy has not fallen in my way since. 



226 



comedies and tragi-comedies were produced about this time. One 
was entitled, Jesus the true Messiah^ a comedy; another, the 
New German Ass of Balaam; a third, the Ca/vinisfic Pos- 
tiliou ; nwi so on. Mysteries of this kind were composed by 
the once celebrated John Bale, who having been a catholic 
of the Carrnehte monastery at Norwich, became a student at 
Oxford, renounced the tenets of Rome, and, * never more to 
serve so execrable a beast, I took,' says he, * to wife, the faith- 
ful DoroMiy in obedience to that divine command, Let him that 
cannot contain, marry/ He obtained church preferment, was 
successively Bishop of Ossory, and Archbishop of Dubini, with 
a prebendal stall at Canterbury, where he died in lo6S, One of 
this protestant prelate's Mysteries, written in 1538, to vindicate 
the doctrine of grace against such as held the doctrine of free will 
and the merit of works, is entitled, a Tragedy or Enterlude, 
mani/festj/mg the chefe promises of God unto man, &c. ; the 
characters are, God, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, 
Isaiah, and John the Baptist ; and at the end of each act is a 
kind of chorus which was performed with voices and instru- 
ments.^ 

Jn 1573 was printed ' a new Enterlude no less wittie than 
pleasant, entitled. New Custom/ written by another hand, to vin- 
dicate and promote the Reformation against ' Old Custom/ The 
characters are allegorical, and discuss the comparative merits of 
the doctrine held by the two churches with more earnestness than 
temper : — 



a Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. i. Baker's Biog. Dramat. by Jones, vol. i. Some 
of Archbishop Bale's other Mysteries are, 1st. A brief comedy or interlude of 
John Baptist's preaching. 2nd, A brief comedy or interlude of Clirist's temp- 
tation by Satan. 3rd, Of Christ when he was twelve years old, one comedy. 
4th, Of Baptism and Temptation, two comedies. 5th. Of Lazarus raised from 
the Dead, one comedy. 6th, Of the Councils of Bi>hnps, one comedy. 7th, 
Of Simon the Leper, one comedy. 8th, Ot the Lord's Snpper, and vrashing 
the feet, one comedy. 9th, Of the Passion of Christ, two comedies. lOtb, 
Of the sepulture and resurrection, two comedies, &c. 



227 

Light of the Gospel— (a Minister.) 

impe of Antechrist, and seed of the devyll! 
Borne to all wickedenesse, and misled in all evil. 

Perverse Doctrine -{^n old Popish Priest.) 
Nay, thou stinkin;? heretike, art thou there in deed? 
According to thy nau^jhtines thou must look for speed. 

New Custome—(?n\othev Minister.) 
Godde's holie woorde in no wise can be heresie, 
Though so you ternie it never so falsly. 

Perverse Doctrine, 
Yee precious whoresou, art thou there too? 

1 think yon have pretended some harme mee to doc. 
Helpe, Helpe, 1 say, let mee be gone at once, 

Else I will smite thee in the face by Godde's bones. 

Neio Custome. 
You must be contented a little season to stay. 
Light of the Gospell, for your profile, hath some thing to say .a 

* New Cusiuhi/ however, cannot be properly called a Mys- 
tery, but a Morality. Theatrically considered, Mysteries are dra- 
matic representations of religious subjects from the Old or New 
Testanaent, or Apocryphal story, or the lives of saints. Moralities 
are dramatic allegories, in which the characters personify certain 
vices or virtues, with the intent to enforce some moral or religious 
principle. Moralities were of later origin than Mysteries, but 
they existed together, and sometimes each partook of the nature 
of the other. A dramatic piece in MS. entitled the * Castle of 
Good Preservance,' formerly belonging to the late Dr. Cox 
Macro, is of this mixed character. In a sort of stage direction 
written on the first leaf, the amanuensis has drawn a diagram of 
two circles, one within the other ; in the space between these 
two circles he has written in words, filling the circumference, 
' this is the watyr a bowte the place, if any dyche may be n^ad 
it schal be pleyed; or ellys that it be strongely barryd al a bowt; 
and lete nowih ov*r many stytelerys be w't inne the plase.' On 
the outside of the * dyche' or circle at five several stations, are 
written the following words denoting the relative positions of five 
scaffolds, and the characters that play, namely, ' Sowth, Caro 

• Dodsley's Old Plays, vol, i. p. 74. 



228 

Skafold—West, Mundus Skaflfold— Northe, Beli/al Skaffold— 
Northest, Coveytyse Skaffold — Est, Deus Skafold.' In the raid- 
die of the space surrounded by the^double circle denoting the 
' dyche' is drawn the castle, with a sort of bench or table 
below it^ and beneath that is written : — ' here mankynde is bed 
schal be under the castel, and there schal the sowle lye, 
under the bed, tyl he schal ryse and playe.' There are other di- 
rections to the players in these words : — ' the iii dowters schul 
be clad i' metelys : mercy with rythwysnesse i' red altogedyr, 
Trewethe in sad grene, and pes al in blake; and the'i schal 
pleye in the plaie al to gedyr, tyl they bringe up the sowle — and 
he that shal pley belyal, loke that he have gune powd'r, bren'y'g 
in pypys i' h's hands, and i' h's eis, and i' h's * * * whane he 
gothe to batayle.' 

Though there is no existing memorial of the representation 
of Mysteries in England since the latter end of the sixteenth 
century, yet, for some time after the Reformation, Mysteries and 
Moralities continued to be written expressly to promote and secure 
the new order of things. They lashed the catholics unsparingly, 
who do not appear to have at all ventured to retort in the same 
way, except in the reign of Henry Vllf . by a dramatic piece, en- 
titled. Every Man, ' in manner of a moralle play,' ^ designed to 
reconcile the people to the doctrines and worship of the ancient 
church. This effort was fruitless, for notwithstanding that after the 
death of Henry, who prohibited the performance of Mysteries, 
their representation was restored by Mary, yet no attempts were 
made by such means, to stay the fall of the papal power in Eng- 
land. It had received a mortal shock from the establishment of 
the printing press,^ which enabled the people to read the New Tes- 

a ' Imprynted at London in Poole's Church Yard, by me John Skot,' 4to. 
*In 1474, was this art bronght into England, by William Caxton, a native, 
and a printing press set up by him at Westminster. These proceedings for the 
advancement of learning and knowledge, especially in divine matters, alarmed 
the ignorant and illiterate monks. — The vicar of Croydon expressed himself to 
the following purpose in a sermon which he preached at St. Paul's Cross about 
this time ; IVe must root out printing, or printing will root out ««.' — Lewis'^8 Hiii* 
</ Eng. Transl p. 55. 



S29 

tnent for themselves; and the chief trace that the old Hierarchy 
left of its dramatic existence was the acting of plays in the churches, 
which was finally ordered to be discontinued by a proclamation 
of Henry VHI. in 1542; but their performance on Sundays was 
continued by the choristers of St. Paul's cathedral and the chapel 
royal, so late even as the reign of Charles the First. 

The difficulty of wholly suppressing an ancient usage is re- 
markably evinced by examples of recent date. 

The Tatler of May 14, 1709, cites a letter from Bath, describ- 
ing the rivalry of Prudentia and Florimel, two ladies at that water- 
ing place. Florimel bespoke the play of Alexander the Great, to be 
acted by the company of strollers on Thursday evening, and the 
letter-writer accepted the lady's invitation to be of her party ; but 
he says, ' Prudentia had counter-plotted us, and had bespoke on 
the same evening, the poppet-show of the Creation of the World. 
She had engaged every body to be there ; and to turn our leader 
into ridicule, had secretly let them know that the poppet Eve 
was made the most like Florimel that ever was seen. On Thurs- 
day morning the poppet drummer, Adam and Eve, and several 
others that lived before the flood, passed through the streets on 
horseback to invite us all to the pastime, and the representation 
of such things as we all know to be true ; and Mr. Mayor was 
so wise as to prefer these innocent people, the poppets, who he 
said were to represent Christians, before the wicked players who 
were to show Alexander an heathen philosopher. When we came 
to Noah^s Flood in the show. Punch and his wife were intro- 
duced dancing in the ark. Old Mrs. Petulant desired both her 
daughters to mind the moral ; then whispered to Mrs. Mayoress, 
*' This is very proper for young people to see." Punch at the 
end of the play made Madam Prudentia a bow, and was very civil 
to the whole company, making bows till his buttons touched the 
ground.' Sir Richard Steele in the Spectator of March 16, 17U, 
intimates that Powell, the puppet-show man, exhibited religious 
subjects with his puppets, under the little piazza in Covent Garden ; 
and talks of ' his next opera of Susannahy or Innocence, betrayed 
which will be exhibited next week with a pair of new Eldeis.' 

2 F 



^230 



Strutt quotes a puppet-showman's bill, in the reign of Anne, 
at the British Museum, which announces scriptural subjects as 
follows ; * At Crawley's Booth, over against the Crown Ta- 
vern, in Smithiield, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, 
will be presented a little opera, called the Old Creation of the 
World, yet newly revived ; with the addition of Noah's Flood; 
also several fountains playing water during the time of the play. 
The last scene does present Noah and his family coming out of 
the ark, with all the beasts two by two, and all the fowls of the 
air seen in a prospect sitting upon trees ; likewise over the ark is 
seen the sun rising in a glorious manner : moreover a multitude 
of angels will be seen in a double rank, which presents a double 
prospect, one for the sun, the other for a palace, where will be 
seen six angels ringing of bells. Likewise machines descend 
from above, double and treble, with Dives rising out of hell, and 
Lazarus seen in Abraham's bosom, besides several figures danc- 
ing jiggs, sarabands, and country dances, to the admiration of the 
spectators ; with the merry conceits of Squire Punch, and Sir 
John SpendallJ 

Perhaps the adventures of Punch in the common puppet- 
show, gave rise to dramatic performances of greater celebrity. 
Punch always comes up gay, heedless, and very well satisfied with 
himself. He is a sensual, dissolute, hardened character, who 
beats his wife and child, has a thorough contempt for moral re- 
putation, disregards the advice of the priest, knocks him down, 
dances with his female associates, is a little frightened by a spec- 
tre, becomes as bad as ever, does not fear the devil, fights with 
him, is conquered, and finally carried off to hell. The adven- 
tures of Don Juan, or the Libertine Destroyed, of the theatres, 
and the Don Giovanni of the Italian opera, seem but an am- 
plified representation of the adventures of Punch, the libertine 
destroyed, in the puppet-show of the streets. 

The English puppet-show was formerly called a motion, 
Shakspeare mentions the performance of Mysteries by puppets ; 
his Autolycus frequented wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings, and 
' compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son' On a Twelfth 



S31 

night, in 1818, a man, making the usual Christmas cry, of 
' Gallant ee show, was called in to exhibit his performances for 
the amusement of my young folks and their companions. Most 
unexpectedly, he ' compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son 'J by 
dancmg his transparencies between the magnifying glass and can- 
dle of a magic lanthorn, the coloured figures greatly enlarged, 
were reflected on a sheet spread against the wall of a darkened 
room. The prodigal son was represented carousing with his 
companions at the Swan Inn, at Stratford ; while the landlady 
in the bar, on every fresh call, was seen to score double. There 
was also Noah's Ark, with ' Full Devil, Pull Bakery or the just 
judgment upon a baker who sold bread short of weight, and was 
carried to hell in his own basket. The reader will bear in mind, 
that this was not a motion in the dramatic sense of the word, 
but a puppet-/2A;e exhibition of a Mystery, with discrepancies 
of the same character as those which peculiarized the Mysteries 
of five centuries ago. The Gallantee-showman narrated with 
astonishing gravity the incidents of every fresh scene, while 
his companion in the room played country-dances and other 
tunes on the street organ, during the whole of the performance. 
The manager informed me that his show had been the same dur- 
ing many years, and, in truth, it was unvariable ; for his entire 
property consisted of but this one set of glasses, and his magic 
lanthorn. I failed in an endeavour to make him comprehend 
that its propriety could be doubted of: it was the first time that 
he had heard of the possibility of objection to an entertainment 
which his audiences witnessed every night with uncommon and 
unbounded applause. Expressing a hope that I would command 
his company at a future time, he put his card into my hand, in- 
scribed, * The Royal Gallantee Show, provided by Jos. Leverge, 
7, Ely Court, Holborn Hill :' the very spot whereon the last 
theatrical representation of a Mystery, the play of Christ's Pas- 
sion, is recorded to have been witnessed in England. 



232 



IX. PAGEANTS, 



Not a rack behind.' Sliakspeare, 



Wart ON thinks that the Pageants, which on civil occasions de- 
rived great part of their decorations and actors from historical 
fact, and consequently made profane characters the subject of 
public exhibition, dictated ideas of a regular drama much sooner 
than the Mysteries.*^ Whether this were so or not, the Pageants 
sometimes partook of the nature of Mysteries, and were of a 
mixed character. This is particularly exemplified in the prints 
to the descriptive volume of the great Haerlem show, before 
mentioned.^ There were on that occasion personifications of 
Vanity, Wisdom, War, Cruelty, Faith, Hope, Charity, Learning, 
Pride, Poverty, Blindness, Drunkenness, Evil Conscience, Wicked- 
ness, Despair, Fame, Bad Report, Envy, Hypocrisy, Hunger, 
Thirst, Pain : personations of Christ, Judas, Ananias, Sapphira, 
Zaccheus, Cornelius, Tabilha, Tobias, Midas, Mercury, Soldiers, 
Murderers, Merchants, Priests, &c. Riches is there represented 
as a man richly habited, accompanied by Covetousness, a female 
with a high ruff open at the neck in front, from whence springs 
a large branch that falls horizontally over her shoulder, to 
Achan, Ahab, and Judas, who follow in the procession, plucking 
the fruit from the bough. In another of these prints, Christ 
barefooted and in a close vest, precedes a penitent-looking man, 
and grasps a sword in his right hand which he turns round and 
points at the devil, who holds a prong,*^ and is at the man's 



a Wartou, vol. ii. p. 202. ^ Page 141, ante. 

c This is the pro7igf a fac simile of that in Hearne's print, p. 138, ante. 



233 

heels with Hell and Death following. Hell is denoted by a 
black monk-like figure walking without a head, flame and smoke 
issuing forth at the top instead ; Death, gaunt and naked, holds 
a large dart; the Devil has a human face with horns, and a 
blunt tail, rather thickened at the end, trailing on the ground 
like a rope. A procession in one of these plates repre- 
sents the story of Hatto, Bishop of Mentz, who, in order that 
a scarcity might the sooner cease, assembled the poor that were 
suffering by famine, in a barn, and caused them to be burnt 
alive, saying, that poor people were like mice, good for nothing 
but to devour corn j wherefore God Almighty raised up an army 
of mice to do judgment upon him, from whom he escaped to a 
tower in the middle of the Rhine, whither the mice swam, and 
miserably devoured him. This story was told in the pageant by a 
wooden building apparently on fire ; people enclosed within, put 
their hands through the bars of the window imploring relief; a 
soldier with a lighted torch in one hand, stabs at them with a 
dagger grasped in the other ; the archbishop, robed, mitred, and 
crosiered, follows dignifiedly ; while Avarice infuses her thoughts 
into his ear with a pair of bellows ; lastly, a dart, from which 
mice are hung by the back, is uplifted against him by death.^ 

Strutt remarks that Pageants, though commonly exhibited in 
the great towns and cities of England on solemn and joyful oc- 
casions, were more frequent in London, on account of its being 
the theatre for the entertainment of foreign monarchs, and for the 
procession of our own kings and queens to their coronation, or 
on their return from abroad ; besides which, there were the cere- 
monials incident at stated periods, such as the setting of the mid- 
summer watch, and the Lord Mayor's Show. Accordingly a 
considerable number of different artificers were kept at the city's 
expense to furnish the machinery for the Pageants, and to deco- 
rate them ; and a great part of Leaden Hall was anciently appro- 
priated to painting and depositing them. The fronts of the 



a The story is agreeably versified, by Mr. Southey, in the ballad of GoiTs Judg- 
ment on a Bishop,— Minor Poems, 1815, vol. ill. p. 66. 



234 

houses in the streets through which the processions passed, were 
covered with rich adornments of tapestry, arras, and cloth of 
gold ; the chief magistrates and most opulent citizens usually ap- 
peared on horseback in sumptuous habits, and joined the caval- 
cade, while the ringing of bells, the sound of music from various 
quarters, and the shouts of the populace, nearly stunned the ears 
of the spectators. At certain distances, in places appointed for 
the purpose, the Pageants were erected, which were temporary 
buildings representing castles, palaces, gardens, rocks or forests, 
as the occasion required, where nymphs, fauns, satyrs, gods, god- 
desses, angels, and devils, appeared in company with giants, sa- 
vages, dragons, saints, knights, buffoons, and dwarfs, surrounded 
by minstrels and choristers ; the heathen mythology, the legends 
of chivalry, and Christian divinity, were ridiculously jumbled to- 
gether without meaning ; and the exhibitions usually concluded 
with dull pedantic harangues exceedingly tedious, and replete 
with the grossest adulation. ^ Warton is of opinion that it was 
not until about the reign of Henry VI. that the performers in the 
Pageants began to recite. From a few notices some estimate 
may be formed of the consequence in which they were held, and 
the nature of the exhibition. 

Strype says, that Pageants were exhibited in London when 
Queen Eleanor rode through the city to her coronation in 1236,^ 
and again in 1298, on occasion of the victory obtained by Ed' 
ward 1. over the Scots.'' There were Pageants in 1357, when 
Edward the black prince brought John king of France prisoner 
through the city; in 1392, when Richard IL passed through 
London after the citizens, by submission, and the queen's inter- 
cession, had obtained the restoration of their charter ; and again^ 
in 1415, upon the entry of Henry V. after the battle of Agin- 
court.'* 

In 1431, when Henry VI. entered Paris. as king. of France, he 



» Strati's Sports, Introd. p. xxiii. 

^ Glory of Regality, by Mr, Arthur Taylor, p. 251. <= Ibid. p. 236. 

^ Jones's Biogr. Dram, art. Pageant. 



235 

was met there by the national and municipal authorities, accom- 
panied by the nine worthies on horseback richly armed.* 

In 1445, on the same king's marriage with queen Margaret, 
when she approached London, the mayor, aldermen, sheriffs, and 
the crafts, wearing their respective cognizances, went forth to 
meet her, and brought her in great state through the city, where 
were sumptuous and costly pageants, with verses by Lydgate, and 
resemblance of divers old histories, to the great comfort of the 
Queen and her attendants.'' 

On the queen of Henry VI. visiting Coventry in 1455, at Bab- 
lake in that city, there was a Jesse over the gate, showing two 
speeches made by Isaiah and Jeremiah, in compliment to the 
Queen, and comparing her to the root of Jesse. Within the gate 
at the east end of the church, St. Edward, and St. John the 
Evangelist, were equally polite in their welcome to her majesty. 
Afterwards the conduit in the ' Smythforde-strete' was right 
well arrayed, and there were showed the four speeches of the 
four cardinal virtues. At the cross in the ' Croschepyng' were 
divers angels censing ahigh on the cross, and wine running out 
at divers places. Between the cross and the conduit were nine 
pageants, and in every pageant a speech from one of the nine con- 
querors. Joshua in his speech told her majesty that if any one 
dared to do her wrong, he would fight for her : David told her 
that in dainties he had lived all his life, had slain Goliath, and 
would obey her as a kind knight for the love of her liege Lord 
^mg Henry. The conduit was arrayed with as many virgins as 
might be thereupon ; and there was made a great dragon, and 
St. Margaret slaying him by miracle, with a suitable speech from 
her.* 

On the 24th of April, 1474, Prince Edward coming out of 
Wales to Coventry, was welcomed by the mayor and commonalty* 
There was a station with three patriarchs there standing with 
Jacob's twelve sons, with minstrelsy of harp and dulcimers, and a 



a Ibi<]. p. ^67. b Ibid. p. 263. 

*= Pageant of the Sheremen and Taylors ; Coventry, 1817^, 4to. 



236 

speech from one of the patriarchs. At the cross were three pro- 
phets standing, and upon the cross above were children of Israel 
singing and casting down sweet cakes and flowers, and four pipes 
running wine. Upon the conduit was St. George and a king's 
daughter kneeling before him with a lamb, and the father and 
mother in a tower above, beholding St. George saving their daugh- 
ter from the dragon, and the conduit running wine in three places, 
and minstrelsy of organ playing.* 

In 1486, king Henry VII. after his coronation, made a pro^ 
gress to the north, with a large attendance of nobility. Three 
miles from York the king in a gown of cloth of gold furred with 
ermine, was received by the sheriffs and citizens with their recorder, 
who welcomed him with a speech. Half a mile without the gate 
he was received by processions of friars and dignified clergy, who 
with an immense multitude attended him to the gate of the city, 
where was a pageant of divers persons and minstrelsy, and thereby 
stood a crowned king, by name Ebraneus, who had a versified 
speech. Ai the hither end of * House Brigge' was another pageant 
garnished with ships and boats, and Solomon in his habit royally 
clothed, had another speech. At the turning into * Conyeux-street' 
there was a pageant of the assumption of our Lady, with her 
speech. At the end of ' Conyeux-street' was another stage with a 
pageant, wherein stood king David, armed and crowned, with a 
naked sword in hrs hand, also making a speech. In divers parts 
of the city were hung tapestry and other cloths, and galleries from 
one side of the street over athwart to the other, with casting out 
of sweet cakes, wafers, and comfits, in quantity like hailstones, for 
joy and rejoicing at the king's coming.** 

On the 25th of November next year, 1487, Elizabeth, 
queen to Henry VII. departed from Greenwich by water, to 
her coronation. She was attended by the city authorities and 
companies in their barges richly decorated, but especially a 
barge called the bachelors' barge was garnished passing all the 
rest, with a great red dragon spouting flames of fire into the 

^ Pageant of the Shereinen and Taylors. ^ Leland, Collect, vol. iv. p. 185. 



237 

Thames, and many other ' gentlemanlie' pageants curiously de- 
vised to do her highness sport ; and so attended, she was landed 
at the tower, where she slept. On the morrow her progress 
through the city to Westminster was magnificently welcomed by 
singing children, some arrdyed like angels, and others like vir- 
gins, to sing sweet songs as she passed along."^ 

In loOl, on the Princess Catharine of Spain arriving in Lon- 
don to be married to Prince Arthur, her procession through the 
city was very magnificent. In the Pageants, which were nume- 
rous and superbly furnished, the principal actors or speakers were 
not only God the Father, St. Catharine, and St. Ursula, but king 
Alphonsus the astronomer and an ancestor of the Princess, a 
senator, an angel. Job, Boethius, Nobility, and Virtue. These 
characters sustained a dialogue.* 

On St. Paul's day in January 1502, ' James king of Scotts,' 
by his proxy, Patrick Earl of Bolhwell, was affianced to the prin- 
cess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. ; on the morning after 
which there was in the hall a goodly pageant, curiously wrought 
with ' fenestrallis,' having many lights burning in the same, in 
manner of a lanthorn, out of which sorted divers sorts of 
' moriskes."" The same year, on the arrival of the Princess 
in Edinburgh, as queen of Scotland, at the entrance of the town 
was a painted gate with two ^ towrells,* and a window in the 
midst, and at the windows of the ' towrells,' angels singing joy- 
ously, and at the middle window was likewise an angel present- 
ing the keys of the town to the queen. In the midst of the town 
was a * scarfawst,' where was represented Paris and the three 
goddesses, with Mercury, who gave him the apple of gold for the 
fairest. In the * scarfawst' was represented also the salutation 
of Gabriel to the Virgyne, and the solemnization of the marriage 
between the Virgin and Joseph. Further on was another new made 
gate upon which were the four Virtues: Justice holding in her 
right hand a naked sword, and the balances in the other, tram- 



* Glory of Regality, p. 276. * Warton, vol. ii. p. 202. 

* Lelaud. Collect, vol. iv. p. 263. 
2 G 



^38 

pled upon Nero ; Fortitude armed, held a shaft, and trod on 
Holofernes ; Temperance held in her hand the bit of * an horse/ 
under her feet was Epicurus; Prudence held in her hand a 
' Syerge/ and stood upon Sardanapalus. With these figures were 
tabrets that played merrily, while the noble company past through.* 

When Charles V. Emperor of Germany visited Henry VIII, 
iu England, his reception in the city of London was graced by 
splendid pageants, the descriptions of which are still in existenco 

The coronation of Ann Boleyn on the 1st of June, 1533, was 
preceded by a procession through London, after she landed from 
Greenwich. On this occasion the citizens devised marvellous 
pageants, in which were Apollo with the muses, and St. Anne, 
with her children. The three Graces were on Cornhill, and the 
cardinal Virtues in Fleet-street.* 

On the 9ih of February, 1546-7, king Edward VI. proceeded 
from the city of London, in great state, to his coronation at West- 
minster. The crafts and aldermen stood arrayed in order ; priests 
and clerks, with their crosses and censers, censed him as he pass- 
ed : tapestry, airas, and cloths of gold and silver, were hung on 
the houses, and rich streamers and banners floated in the air. The 
procession was very splendid. In various parts of the city were 
goodly pageants and devices, and therein goodly melody, and elo- 
quent speeches of noble histories. 1. At the conduit in Cornhill, 
was a pageant garnished with rich arras, on it were a conduit run- 
ning sweet wine, divers instruments, and goodly singing, and two 
children pronounced speeches to the king, with a song which coiv- 
tains expressions very like some in the present song of God save 
the King. 2. On the pageant at the great conduit in Cheap, were 
persons resembling Valentine and Orson, one clodied with moss and 
ivy leaves, holding a great club of yew tree, the other as a knight, 
and they pronounced speeches. The conduit ran wine, and was 
richly garnished ; near it stood four children, as Grace, Nature, 
Fortune, and Charity, who, one after the other, made speeches. 



a Leland. Collect, vol. iv. p. 290. 
* MS. iu Bibl. C. C. C. Cantab. N. vii. 10. « Glory of Regality, p. 283. 



^39 

At a distance round the conduit, stood eight ladies richly appa- 
relled, representing ' Sapience/ and the seven Liberal Sciences. 
At the end of the conduit, towards Cheap, was a double scaffold, 
one above the other, hung with cloih and silk, besides rich arras. 
The upper contained a heaven, with the sun and stars, and clouds, 
that spread abroad, letting down a lesser cloud of white sarcenet, 
fringed with silk, powdered with stars and beams of gold, from 
whence a phoenix descended down to a mount of sweet shrubs on 
the lower scaffold, and there setting, a lion of gold crowned made 
amity to the phoenix by motions of the head ; between which 
famiharity, as it seemed, there came forth a young lion, on whose 
head, two angels from the heaven, placed an imperial crow-n, and 
the old lion and the phoenix vanished, leaving the young lion 
crowned alone, and then the aforesaid ladies delivered speeches. 
On the nether scaffold, a child royally arrayed, representing the 
king, was seated on a throne, supported by four other children, 
representing Royalty with a sceptre, Justice with a sword. Truth, 
with a book, and Mercy with a curtana ; these four made speeches. 
Also, beside the throne was the golden fleece, kept by two bulls 
and a serpent, their mouths flaming out fire, and six children who 
played upon the ' regalles,' and sang goodly songs. 3. The little 
conduit in Cheap being richly hung and ornamented, at the top 
was a tower, with the waits playing in it, an old man sitting in a 
chair, crowned, sceptred, and arrayed, represented king Edward 
the Confessor, with a lion of gold lying before him which moved 
its head. On a stage, at the foot of the conduit, St. George stood 
in complete harness, with a page also harnessed, holding his spear 
and shield, and a fair maiden holding a lamb in a string ; near them 
was a child richly apparelled, to pronounce a Latin oration, and 
St- George was to make one in English, but, for lack of time, 
it could not be done, his grace made such speed : howbeit, there 
was a song. 4. When the king came to St. George's church, in 
St. Paul's churchyard, there was a rope stretched from the battle- 
ments of St. Paul's, and with a great anchor, fastened a little 
before Paul's house-gate. When the king approached, there 



240 

came a man, a native of Arragon, l^ing on the rope, his head 
forward, casting his arms and his legs abroad, running on his 
breast on the rope from the battlements to the ground, as it had 
been an arrow out of a bow. Then rising from the ground, he 
went to the king, and kissed his foot, and after certain words to 
his Highness, departed, and went upwards upon the rope till he 
came over the midst of the church, and there, having a rope 
about him, he played certain mysteries on the said rope, as tumb- 
ling, casting one leg from another, tying himself by the right leg 
a little beneath ' the wrist' of the foot, and hanging a while re- 
covered himself upon the rope, unknit the knot, and came down 
again, which staid the king's majesty, with all the train, a good 
space of time. 5. Upon the great conduit in Fleet Street, was a 
stage, whereon sat a child richly arrayed, to represent Truth, with 
two other children before him in red, representing Faith and 
Justice, whose names were written on their places. As the king 
passed, Truth made a speech, and two hogsheads of wine were 
broached, ' take who would.' The company then proceeded in 
goodly order to Temple-bar. The gate was painted with battle- 
ments and buttresses of divers colours, richly hung with cloth of 
arras, and garnished with fourteen standards. Eight French trum- 
peters blew their trumpets after the fashion of their country, and 
besides them were a pair of ' regalles,' and children singing to 
them. The company then proceeded in goodly order till they 
came to Westminster, to abide the coronation.^ 

On the 1st of October, 1553, the coronation of Queen Mary 
was performed by Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. Her pro- 
gress to the ceremony through the city was celebrated with simi- 
lar exhibitions ; * one master Heiwood' sat in a pageant under a 
vine, and made an oration in Latin and English ; and, as if to outdo 
the flying argosine at the last coronation, we have here a Dutch- 
man standing on the weathercock of St. Paul's steeple, who, holding 
a streamer in his hand of five yards long, and waving thereof, stood 

-'^ Leknd. Coliectan. vol. iv. p. S22. 



sometimes on one foot and shook the other, and then kneeled on 
his knees to the great marvel of the people/ 

At the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, on Sunday, January 
15, 1558-9, her progress was marked by superb pageants. On 
her arrival at Temple-bar, Gogtnagog and Corin^zus, two giants, 
were seen holding above the gate, a table wherein was writ- 
ten in Latin verse, ' the effect of ail the pageants which the 
city before had erected/b 

The encouragement that literature and the Greek language 
received from Elizabeth, created a fashion for classical allusion 
upon every convenient occasion, and the queen's admiration of this 
kind of compliment, caused the mythology of ancient learning to 
be introduced into the various shows and spectacles in her ho- 
nour. Warton says, that when she paraded through a country 
town almost every pageant was a pantheon. When she paid a 
visit at the house of any of her nobility, on entering the hall she 
was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privy-chamber 
by Mercury : in the afternoon, when she condescended to walk 
in the garden, the lake was covered with tritons and nereids ; the 
pages of the family were converted into wood-nymphs, who passed 
from every bower; and the footmen gamboled over the lawn in 
the figure of satyrs.* 

On the 15th of March, 1603, when king James I. and Queen 
Anne passed from the tower through London, there were various 
pageants, with laudatory speeches in English and Latin. On 
the 31st of May, l6lO, the corporation of London met Prince 
Henry on his return from Richmond, and entertained him with a 
grand water-light and fire-works. In 16 1 6, ' the city's love' was 
manifested by a water entertainment at Chelsea and Whitehall, on 
the creation of the Prince of Wales, who, afterwards, 25th Nov. 
.1641, when Charles I. was treated with a ' triumph' on his safe 
arrival from Scotland. On the 5th of July, 1660, there were 
magnificent triumphs at an entertainment given in the Guildhall 
to Charles II., the Dukes of York and Gloucester, the two houses 

a Glory of Regality, p. 287. ^ Ibid, «= Warton, vol. iii. p. 491. 



24^ 

of pailiament, the privy-council, judges, &c. The passage of 
Charles II. through Loudon to his coronation in 166I, was cele- 
brated by pageants, with ' speeches and impresses illustrated from 
antiquity ;' and on the 23d of August, 1662, the city welcomed his 
return with his queen, from Hampton Court, to Whitehall, with 
shows and pageants upon the Thames. 

The Old Chronicles contain large particulars of these and similar 
exhibitions. Certain traces of the processional parts were retained in 
London about forty or fifty years ago, in the lord mayor's show : 
but the pageants and orations have been long discontinued, and 
the show itself is so much contracted, that it is in reality altogether 
unworthy of such an appellation.* However, as the citizens in 
general are so little acquainted with the subject, that most of 
those I have inquired of rather express a desire for some informa- 
tion regarding this ancient usage, I have endeavoured to contribute 
towards their satisfaction in the next article. Before concluding 
this it may be proper to observe that there were satirical pa- 
geants accommodated to the amusement of the vulgar. The 
procession of the Miserable Scald Masons, of which there 
is a large print, was of this kind. Its description, there is nof 
room to insert without omitting some account of another, more 
connected with the subject, from a pamphlet intitled, * The So- 
lemn Mock Procession^ or the Tryal and Execution of the Pope 
and his niuiislers on the 17. of Nov. at Temple- Bar, I68O.' (4to. 
S pages.) It was a practice on that day, being the anniversary 
of Queen Elizabeth's accession to the throne, to celebrate the 
event in London by a pageant in honour of the established reli- 
gion, and in ridicule of the Pope, ' the Arch-Traitor and the 
head Ingineer not only of our civil combinations, but also of the 
lamentable hriiig of this famous mother city of our country;' to 
commemorate which conflagration, with equal truth, the monu- 
ment on Fish Street Hill, 

^ Like a tall bally, lifts its head and lies.' 

The author of the procession apologetically observes that 

a Strutts Sports, Introd. p. xxiv. 



24S 

* Erasmus's satyrical drollery was found to be as effectual to bring 
down the Romish pageantry as Luther's gravity of argument,' and 
proceeds to describe the show of the day, which though abridged 
here, is chiefly given in the words of the tract, as follows :-— 

First the Captain of the Pope's guard on horseback followed 
by ten pioneers in red caps and coats in ranks, with staves and 
truncheons, to make way [as whifflers] for the main body. Next 
a bellman ringing, and saying in a loud doleful voice, * Remember 
Justice Godfrey.'^ Then a dead bloody corpse representing Sir 
Edmund Bury Godfrey on horseback, supported by a Jesuit be- 
hind with a bloody dagger in his hand. After this, carried by two 
persons, a large cloth banner painted in colours, representing the 
Jesuits at Wild House all hanging on a gibbet, and among them 

* another twelve that would betray their trust or conscience ;' on 
the other side Gammer Celliers with a bloody bladder, and all 
her other presbyterian plot-forgers, and protestanls in masque- 
rade. First Pageant. In the forepart a meal-tub, Mrs. Cellier in 
one corner leaning on it, with her ' narrative' in her hand ; at the 
other corner, ' o?ie in blacky bareheaded and playing on a fiddle ; 
behind, four protestants in masquerade bi-partite garments of 
white and black. After the pageant an ' abhorrer' on horseback, 
with his face to the tail ; then a man on horseback bearing a ban- 
ner inscribed, * We protestants in masquerade usher in popery/ 
Second Pageant, Four Franciscan Friars ; two being capuchins 
in grey russet, with a cord about the middle, and long cowls on 
their heads hanging behind with a tail ; the other, two minorites, 
a diminutive species of these Franciscan birds, in a cinnamon co- 
loured habit with shorter cowls. Third Pageant. Two Augus- 
tine Friars, in black close habits with a leather girdle ; and two 
Dominican bouncing Friars, in black and white garments, called 
Brothers Preachers. Fourth Pagearit, Here strut out four 
Jesuits in a black hue and garb suitable to their manners, with 



a Few readers require information concerning the circumstances referred to 
in this procession. They are mostly well known, or may be easily found in 
the historical works of the times they relate to. 



244 

high collars mounting up about their necjss like a pasty crust* 
Fifth Pageant. Here are mounted two bishops, a sort of dis- 
ciples of Christ that pretend to take place of ordinary dukes and 
princes ; behind are two archbishops in pontificalibus ; they 
differ in their crosiers. Sixth Pageant. Two patriarchs, with 
two forked crosiers, in bishop-like vestments ; and two cardinals 
riding in pure scarlet vestments, being next cousins to the scarlet 
whore of Babylon. Next his Holiness's master of the ceremonies 
carrying the Pope's triple cross, distributing bulls, pardons, and 
indulgences, and crying aloud, ' Here you may have heaven for 
money/ Seventh Pageant. Here comes Anti Christ him- 
self arrayed in scarlet robes, furred with ermine, and covered 
with gold and silver lace, with a triple crown, inscribed in front 
* Mystery^ holding two keys in his hands, pretended to be of a 
place he is never likely to get into ; two swords standing at his 
right hand, one typifying excommunication, the other civil do- 
minion over kings and princes ; sprawling under his feet, the 
Emperor Frederick, on whose neck he insolently trod at Venice ; 
many other crowns and sceptres that he arrogates the disposal of, 
also at his feet. A Page in white at one corner of the throne, 
brandishing a banner inscribed, ' This is the king of kings i ano- 
ther page at the other corner, holding a streamer inscribed, ' Thou 
art our God the Pope.' Eighth Pageant. The Empress Donna 
Olympia, the Pope's mistress, surrounded by four nuns ; on the 
pageant a streamer inscribed, * Courtezans in ordinary.' 'Ninth 
Pageant. They usher in their religion with fineries, but the sting 
of the Inquisition is in the serpent's tail ; here is the main scene 
of Anti Christ's cruelties; in this pageant you see a seat of judi- 
cature whereon sits a bishop as inquisitor-general, surrounded by 
monks as inquisitor's assistants ; a poor martyr condemned be- 
fore them, dragged to a stake environed with fagots to burn him, 
having a sanbenite cap on his head all painted with devils ; the 
space round about strewed and hemmed with racks and instru- 
ments of torture. — * In this fatal pomp the procession sets out 
from Whitechapel-bars, and on through Bishopsgate, througli 
Cornhill, Cheapside, and Ludgate, till it comes to Temple-bar^ 



U5 

inhere the Pope and his ministers being brought before the fio-ure 
of Queen Elizabeth, receives his first sentence, and afterwards 
being led before the statue or tribunal of King Charles II., on 
the other side, he receives his final doom and downfal, namely, 
to be burnt with all his fry before Queen Besses throne, the ashes 
to be scattered about, that thence might never spring hereafter in 
England one popish phenix ; ' and, in remembrance of her happy 
days, and for the victories that God gives us in our days against 
the Pope and his emissaries, the solemnity is closed with fuzees 
and artificial fires/* In the Solemn Mock Procession of the 
year before, 1679, the Devil attended the Pope as his ' right- 
trusty and well beloved cousin and counsellor ;' caressed, hugged, 
whispered, and often instructed him aloud. The procession 
arriving at the eastern side of Temple-bar, where, the statue 
of Queen Elizabeth having been conspicuously ornamented, a 
song alluding to the protection of the protestants by that queen 
was sung, and his Holiness, after some compliments and re- 
luctances, was decently toppled from all his grandeur into a vast 
bonfire over against the Inner Temple gate ; ' the crafty Devil 
leaving his Infallibility in the lurch, and laughing as heartily at his 
deserved ignominious end, as subtle Jesuits do at the ruin of 
bigotted lay catholics whom themselves have drawn in/*' In 
Queen Anne's time the figure of the Pretender was added to that 
of the Pope and the Devil. 

A vain attempt to revive obsolete prejudices in England by 
dressing a statue, was made on the anniversary of King William, 
in 1821, when a clandestine decoration of his effigy in St. James's 
Square was effected during the night. The last Solemn Mock 
Procession round the bedizened statue of King William, in Col- 
lege-green, Dublin, took place the same year. This annual insult 
to three fourths of the people of Ireland, was finally suppressed 
by Marquess Wellesley, the Lord Lieutenant. 

* This procession is engraved on a copper-plate, * sold by Jonathan AVilkin& 
at the Star in Cheapside next to Mercer's chapel.' 
^ Brand, vol. ii. p.5l9. Gent. Mag. vol. xxx. p. 515, from Lord Soniers'sTract*^, 

2 H 



246 



X. LORD MAYOR'S SHOW. 



Behold 

Ho\¥ London did pour out her citizens! 

The Mayor, and all his brethren, in best sort! 

Shakspeare^ 



A N historical description of the annual procession and ceremo- 
nial on the entrance of the Lord Mayor of London into office, 
might be a work of some interest to those citizens who unite 
antiquarian with civic feeling. But as an undertaking requiring 
so much labour in the execution is scarcely to be expected, and 
the Lord Mayor's show is the only stated exhibition in the me- 
tropolis that remains as a memorial of the great doings in the time 
of the pageants, I purpose some account of its ancient appear- 
ance, commencing with a description, on the authority of a 
MS. quoted by Dr. Nathan Drake.* It is 'A breffe description of 
the Royall Citie of London, capital citie of this realme of Eng- 
land, (city arms). Wrytten by me, William Smythe, citezen and 
haberdasher of London, 1575.' With a slight alteration of the 
orthography, the account is as follows : 

^ The day of St. Simon and St. Jude, the mayor enters into 
his state and office. The next day he goes by water to West- 
minster in most triumphlike manner, his barge being garnished 
with the arms of the city ; and near it a ship-boat of the Queen's 
Majesty being trimmed up and rigged like a ship of war, with 
divers pieces of ordnance, standards, pennons, and targets of the 
proper arms of the said mayor, of his company, and of the mer- 

a Shakspeare and his Times, vol, ii. p. 164, 



^47 

chants' adventurers, or of the staple, or of the company of the new 
trades ; next before him goelh the barge of the livery of his own 
company, decked with their own proper arms; then the bachelors' 
barge ; and so all the companies in London, in order, every one 
having their own proper barge, with the arms of their company. 
And so passing along the Thames, he landeth at Westminster, 
yvhere he takeih his oath in the Exchequer before the judge there; 
which done, he returneth by water as aforesaid, and landeth at 
Paul's wharf, wliere he, and the rest of the aldermen take their 
horses, and in great pomp pass through Cheapside. And first of 
all Cometh two great standards, one having the arms of the city, 
and the other tlie arms of the mayor's company ; next them two 
drums and a flute, then an ensign of the city, and then about Ixx 
or Ixxx poore men marching two and two, in blue gowns, with 
red sleeves and caps, every one bearing a pike and a target, 
whereon is painted the arms of all them that have been mayors of 
the same company that this new mayor is of. Then two banners, 
one of the king's arms, the other of the mayor's own proper 
arms. Then a set of hautboys playing, and after them certain 
wyfflerSj^ in velvet coats and chains of gold, with white staves in 



a WhiffleVf Mr. Douce says, {Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 507.) is a term 
undoubtedly borrowed from whiffle, another name for a fife or small flute ; for 
whiffiers were originally those who preceded armies or processions, as fifers or 
pipers : in process of time the term whiffler^ which had been always used in the 
sense of a jyer, came to signify any person who went before in a procession. 
He observes, that Minshew defines him to be a club or staff-bearer, and that 
it appears, tvhifflers carried white staves, as in the annual feast of the printers, 
founders, and ink-makers, described by Handle Holme. Mr. Archdeacon Nares, 
in his Glossary, cites Grose's mention of the whifflers at Norwich, who make 
way for the corporation by flourishing their swords. A friend informs me that 
the dexterity of the Norwich whifflers in turning their swords to every possible 
direction is amazing. Mr. Arcbdeacon Nares remarks, that in the city of 
London, young freemen, who march at the head of their proper companies on 
the Lord Mayor's day, sometimes with flags, were called whifflers, or bachelor 
whifflers, not because they cleared the way, but because they went first as ivhif- 
jlers did ; and he quotes a character in the old Play of the City Match, saying, 
* I look'd the next lord mayor's day to see you o' the livery, or one of the ba- 
chelor whifflers,' 



!248 ■ 

their hands ; then the Pageant of Triumph richly decked, where- 
upon by certain figures and writings, some matter touching Justice 
and the office of a magistrate is represented. Then sixteen trum- 
peters, eight and eight, having banners of the mayor's company. 
Then certain wi/fflers in velvet coats and chains, with white staves 
as before. Then the bachelors, two and two, in long gowns, 
with crimson hoods on their shoulders of satin ; which bachelors 
are chosen every year of the same company, that the mayor is of, 
(but not of the living) and serve as gentlemen on that and other 
festival days, to wait on the mayor, being in number according to 
the quantity of the company, sometimes sixty, or one hundred. 
After them twelve trumpeters more, with banners of the mayor's 
company ; then the drum and flute of the city, and an ensign of 
the mayor's company ; and after, the waits of the city in blue gowns, 
red sleeves and caps, every one having a silver collar about his 
neck. Then they of the livery in their long gowns, every one hav- 
ing his hood on his left shoulder, half-black and half-red, the 
number of them according to the greatness of the company 
whereof they are. After them follow sheriffs-officers, and then 
the mayor's officers, with other officers of the city, as the Com- 
mon Serjeant, and the Chamberlain ; next before the mayor goetb 
the sword-bearer, having on his head the cap of honour, and the 
sword of the city in his right hand, in a rich scabbard, set with 
pearl, and on his left hand goeth the common crier of the city, 
with his great mace on his shoulder all gilt. The mayor hath on 
a long gown of scarlet, and on his left shoulder a hood of black 
velvet, and a rich collar of gold of SS. about his neck, and with 
him rideth the old mayor also, in his scarlet gown, hood of velvet, 
and a chain of gold about his neck. Then all the aldermen, two 
and two, (among whom is the Recorder) all in scarlet gowns ; 
those that have been mayors have chains of gold, the others have 
black velvet tippets. The two sheriffs come last of all, in their 
black scarlet gowns and chains of gold. In this order they pass 
along through the city to the Guildhall, where they dine that day, 
to the number of 1000 persons, all at the charge of the mayor and 
the two sheriffs. This feast costeth 400/., whereof the mayor 



249 

payeth '200/. and each of the sheriffs, 100/. Immediately after 
dinner, they go to St. Paurs church,- every one of the aforesaid 
poor men bearing staff, torches, and targets, which torches are 
lighted when it is late, before they come from evening prayer/ 
To this account from the MS. may be added that, in still more 
ancient times, the procession to and from Westminster was by 
land; until in 1453, Sir John Norman built a sumptuous barge 
at his own expense, for the purpose of going by water, when the 
watermen made a song in his praise, beginning, ' Row thy boat, 
Norman/ and the twelve companies, emulating their chief, have, 
from that period, graced the Thames on Lord Mayor's day. 

Mr. Stephen Jones, in his edition of the Biographia Drama- 
tica, has drawn up a list of printed descriptions of the London 
Triumphs, or Lord Mayors' Shows, from whence it seems that the 
first account of this annual exhibition known to have been published, 
was written by George Peele, for the inauguration of Sir Wolstone 
Dixie, knight, on the SQlh of October, 1585, when children per- 
sonified the City, Magnanimity, Loyalty, Science, the Country, and 
the river Thames. They also represented a soldier, a sailor, and 
nymphs, with appropriate speeches. The show opened with a 
moor on the back of a lynx. On Sir Thomas Middleton's may- 
oralty, in l6l3, the solemnity is described as unparalleled for the 
cost, art, and magnificence of the shows, pageants, chariots, 
morning, noon, and night triumphs. In 1655, the city pageants, 
after a discontinuance of about fourteen years, were revived. Ed- 
mund Gay ton, the author of the description for that year, says, 
that * our metropolis for these planetary pageants, was as famous 
and renowned in foreign nations, as for their faith, wealth, and 
valour.' In the show of 1659, an European, an Egyptian, and a 
Persian, were personated. On Lord Mayor's day, l67 1, the king, 
queen, and duke of York, and most of the iiobiliiy being present, 
there were ' sundry shows, shapes, scenes, speeches and songs, in 
parts ;' and the like, in 1672, and 1673, when the king again 
' graced the triumphs.' The king, queen, duke and duchess of 
York, Prince Rupert, the duke of Monmouth, foreign ambassa- 
dors, the chief nobility, and Secretary of State, were at the 



250 

celebration of Lord Mayor's day in 1 674, when there were ' emble- 
matical figures, artful pieces of architecture, and rural dancing, with 
pieces spoken on each pageant.' The design of this notice being 
merely to acquaint the reader with the ancient character of this 
solemnity, it is unnecessary to do more than select such parti- 
culars as may satisfy common curiosity, and be useful to those 
who are interested in searching for precedents regarding the pro- 
cession. 

The printed accounts of the London Pageants are scarce, 
and some of such extreme rarity, as to bear a price at the 
rate of two and three guineas a leaf. The description of Sir 
Patience Ward's show on the 29th of October 1680, com- 
posed by Thomas Jordan, is an interesting specimen of the 
setting out and pageantry of this procession.^ The Lord Mayor 
being of the livery of the merchant-tailors' company, at seven 
o'clock in the morning, liverymen of the first rank, appoint- 
ed to conduct the business of the day, assembled at merchant- 
tailors' hall, to meet the masters, wardens, and assistants, in their 
gowns, faced withybj/ws." In the second rank, others in gowns 
faced with budge," and hvery-hoods. In the third rank, a num- 
ber of fovns-bachelors, and forty budge-bachelors, both attired 
in scarlet hoods and gowns. Sixty gentlemen-ushers, in velvet 
coats and chains of gold, bearing white staves. Thirty more 
in plush and bufF, bearing colours and banners. Thirty-six 
of the king's trumpeters, with silver trumpets, headed by the 
serjeant-trumpeter, he wearing two scarfs, one the Lord Mayor's, 
and the other the company's colours. The king's drum-major, 
followed by four of the king's drums and fifes. Seven other 
drums and two fifes, wearing vests of buflf, with black breeches 
and waste scarfs. Two city marshals on horseback, with at- 
tendants. The foot-marshal, with a rich broad shoulder- scarf, 
to put them in rank and file, attended by six others. The 



a The printed descriptions are mostly in the present or future tense. 

b Foyns, the skin of the martin. 

= Budge f larabs'.skin, with the wool dressed outwards. 



251 

fence-master, with attendants, bearing bright broadswords drawn?. 
Poor pensioners, with gowns and caps, bearing standards and 
banners. A troop of poor persons, in azure gowns and caps. 
One hundred more with javelins and targets, bearing the arms of 
their benefactors. Being all assembled, they are by the foot- mar- 
shal's judgment, arranged into six divisions, ranked out by two 
and two. The First Division contains the ensigns of the com- 
pany, followed by the poor company of pensioners. Four drums 
and one fife. Pensioners in coats as before described. Per- 
sons of worth, each bearing a standard or banner. Four trum- 
pets. Two merchant-tailors' ensigns, bearing their supporters and 
crest. Six gentlemen-ushers. The budge-bachelors, marching 
in measured order. Second Division. Six trumpets. Two 
gentlemen, bearing the coals of arms of the city, and the mer- 
chant-tailors' company. Eight gentlemen, wearing gold chains. 
The foyns-bachelors. Third Division. Two gentlemen in velvet 
coats with banners. Ten gentlemen-ushers in coats and chains of 
gold, as before described. A large body of the livery in their 
gowns and livery-hoods, followed by * all Lord Mayors in the po- 
tential mood,' In their rear divers of the city trumpets. Two 
gentlemen bearing the arms of the city and the Lord Mayor. Gen- 
tlemen-ushers. The court of assistants. Four drums. Six trum- 
pets. Three gallants, bearing the banners of the diadem. The 
king's, queen's, and city's ensigns, attended by six gentlemen as 
pages. The masters and wardens of the merchant-tailors' com- 
pany. Thus formed, they march from merchant-tailors' hall to 
the Lord Mayor's house, where his lordship and the aldermen take 
horse, according to their degree, and the whole body proceed 
in state to (juildhall. Being met at the gate by the old Lord 
Mayor, and there attired with the gown, fur hood, and scarf, and 
guarded by knights, esquires, and gentlemen, they all march 
through King Street down to Three-crane wharf, where the Lord 
Mayor and aldermen, discharging some of the attendants, take 
barge at the west end of the wharf; the court of assistants' livery, 
and the best of the gentlemen-ushers taking barge at the east-end. 
The rest of the ushers, with the foyns and the budge-bachelors^ 



252 

remain ashore, with others, to await the return of his lordship, 
who proceeds with several city companies by water, and is rowed 
all along by the Strand to Westminster; a pleasure-boat with 
great guns aboard saluting him on the way. At New Palace 
Stairs they disembark, and making a lane to the hall, the Lord 
Mayor passes along to take the oath and go through the usual 
ceremonies. These being completed, he makes a liberal dona- 
tion to the poor of Westminster, reimbarks with all his retinue, 
and being rowed back to Blackfriars Stairs, he lands there under 
beat of drum and a salute of three volleys from the Artillery Com- 
pany in their martial ornaments, some in buif, with head-pieces, 
many being of massy silver. From Blackfriars they march be- 
fore the Lord Mayor and aldermen through Cheapside to Guild- 
hall. The pensioners and banners who went not to Westminster, 
being set in order to march, the foot-^marshal in the rear of the 
Artillery Company, leads the way along by the channel up Lud- 
gate Hill, through Lud-gate, into St. Paul's church-yard, and so 
into Cheapside, where his lordship is entertained by the Jirsf 
pageant, consisting of a large stage, with the coat armour of the 
merchant-tailors' company, eminently erected, consisting of a large 
tent royal, gules, fringed and richly garnished, or, hned, faced, and 
doubled, ermine. This sUige is winged or flanked by two other 
stages, bearing two excellent figures of lively carved camels, the 
supporters to the company's coat. On the back of one camel, 
a black native Indian, in a goldeu robe, a purple mantle fringed 
with gold, pearl pendants in his ears, coronet of gold with fea- 
thers, and golden buskins laced with scarlet ribbon, holds a golden 
bridle in his left, and a banner of the company, representing 
Treasure in his right hand. On the other camel, a West Indian, 
in a robe of silver, scarlet mantle, diamonds pendant from his ears, 
buskins of silver laced with purple ribbon, a golden crown fea- 
thered, holds a silver bridle in his left, and a banner of the Lord 
Mayors, representing Traffic, in his right hand. On one of the 
camel- stages four figures sit on pedestals, one at each corner, 
representing Diligence, Industry, Ingenuity, and Success; on 
ihe other camel-stage, in like manner, Mediocrity, Amity, Verity ,> 



953 

Variety f all richly habited in silk or sarcenet, bear splendid em- 
l)lenis and banners. The royal tent, or imperial pavilion, be- 
tween these two stages, is supported on one side by a minister of 
state representing Royalty y and on the other side by another re- 
presenting Loyalty; each in rich robes of honor gules j wearing 
on their left arms shields azure, with this motto in gold. For the 
king and kingdomf one bearing a banner of the king's, and the 
other, one of the city's banners. On a high and eminent seat of 
throne-like ascension, is seated Sovereignty in royal posture and 
alone, with black curled hair, wearing an imperial crown, a robe 
of purple velvet, lined, faced, and caped with ermine, a collar of 
SS with a George pendant ; bearing in one hand a golden globe, 
in the other a royal sceptre. On a seat beneath, are Principa- 
lity^ Nobility f and Honour, all richly habited. On the next seat, 
gradually descending beneath, are, 1. Gentility, shaped like a 
scholar and soldier, holding in one hand, clad with a golden gaunt- 
let, a silver spear, in the other a book ; 2. Integrity, wearing an 
earl's coronet for the court, a loose robe of scarlet-coloured silk 
for the city, underneath a close coat of grass green plush for the 
country ; 3. Commonalty, as a knight of the shire in parliamen- 
tary robes. On the lowest seat, an ancient English Hero, with 
brown curling hair, in ancient armour, as worn by chief com- 
manders, the coat of mail richly gilt, crimson and velvet scarf 
fringed with gold, a quiver of arrows in a gold belt on one side, a 
sword at the other, buskins laced with silver and gold, a silver 
helmet with red and white plume ; in one hand a large long bow, 
and a spear in the other. This personage, representing Sir John 
Hawkwood, a merchant-tailor of martial renown under Edward 
III., when he conquered France, as soon as he perceives the lord 
mayor prepared, with attention riseth up, and with a martial bow 
exhibiteth a speech in verse of thirty-seven lines, in compliment 
to the merchant-tailors and the lord mayor. His lordship testify- 
ing his approbation, rideth with his brethren through the throng 
of spectators, till at Milk Street end, he is intercepted by The 
second Pageant, which is a chariot of ovation, or peaceful triwmph, 
adorned with delightful pieces of curious painting, and drawn by 

xU 1 



^54 

a golden lion and a lamb. On the lion is mounted a young negro- 
prince, richly habited, according to the royal mode in India, hold- 
ing a golden bridle, and in the other hand St. George's banner, 
representing Power. On the lamb is mounted a white beautiful 
seraphim-like creature, with long bright flaxen curled hair, and on it 
a golden coronet of cherubim's heads and w ings, a carnation sarce- 
net robe, with a silver mantle and wings of gold, diver, purple, 
and scarlet, reining the lamb by a silver bridle in his left hand, 
and with his right bearing an angelical staff, charged with a red 
cross, representing Clemency, In the chariot sitteth seven per- 
sons, 1. Concordia, 2. Unanimia, 3. Pacijica, 4. Consentatiia, 
5. Melodea, 6. Benevolentia, (whose habits, and those of other 
characters already and hereafter mentioned, are not described here 
for want of room) and 7. ' Harmonia, a lady of great gravity, with 
masculine aspect, wearing a lovely dark brown peruke, curiously 
curled, on which is planted a crown imperial ; she wears a robe of 
French green velvet, pleasantly embroidered with gold, a crimson 
coloured silk and silver mantle, and sitting majestically alone in 
front, upon the approach and fixation of my lord mayor, improves 
the opportunity, riseth up, and delivereth an oration,' of forty-four 
lines in verse, wherein she acquaints his lordship that the other 
characters are her attributes, recommends unity, because division 
is the policy of the Pope and the Jesuits, expresses her belief 
that if the lion and the lamb fall out, she should run to ruin, des- 
cants upon magistrate-like virtues, and in the end tells his lord- 
ship, 

You have done all things fair, no actions foul, 
Your sherevalry gave relish of good rule, 
Nor need they doubt your mayoralty, therefore, 
Begging your pardon, I shall say no more. 

This speech being concluded, his lordship exhibiting a gracious 
aspect of favourable acceptation, advanceth further towards Guild- 
hall, but is civilly obstructed by another scene, and in regard, 
his lordship is a merchant, and his company merchant-tailors, 
the Third Triumphal Scene, or Pageant, is a ship called the 



9.55 

Patience, with masts, and sails, fully rigged, and manned, the cap- 
tain whereof addresseth to my lord a speech beginning, 

What cheer, my lord? I am return'd from sea, 
To araplifie your day of Jubilee, 
In this tried vessel, &c. 

His lordship having surveyed the ship, and the trumpets sounding, 
he continueth his determined course toward Guildhall, but by the 
way is once more obstructed by another scene, called the Palace 
of Fleasure, which is a triumphal Ionic arch of excellent struc- 
ture, where, in distinct and perspicuous situations, sitteth nine 
beautiful and pleasant ladies, whose names, natures, and orna- 
ments are consentaneous, 1. Jollity, 2. Delight, So Fancy, 4. 
Felicity, 5, Wit, 6. Invention, 7. Tumult, 8. Slaughter, 9. 
Gladness; all of them properly enrobed and adorned ; and to aug- 
ment their delight, there are several persons properly habited, 
playing on sundry loud instruments of music, one of which, with 
a voice as loud and as tunable as a treble hautboy, chanteth out a 
Ditty in commendation of the Merchant-tailors^ Trade, com- 
mencing thus, 

Of all the Professions that ever were nam'd 
The Taylors though slighted, is much to be fam'd : 
For various Invention and Antiquity, 
No Trade with the Taylers compared may be : 
For warmth and distinction and Fashion he doth 
Provide for both Sexes with Silk, Stuff, and Cloth: 
Then do not disdain him or slight him, or :flout him, 
Since (if well consider'd) you can't live without him. 

But let all due praises (that can be) be made 

To honour and dignifie the Taylers trade. 

When Adam and Eve out of Eden were hurl'd. 

They were at that time king and queen of the world : 

Yet this royal Couple were forced to play 

The Taylers, and put themselves in green Array j 

For Modesty and for Necessity's sake 

They had Figs for the Belly, and Leaves for the Back ; 

And afterward Clothing of Sheep<skins they made 

Then judge if a Tayler was not the first Trade, 

The oldest Profession ; and they are but Raylers, 
Who scoff and deride men that be Mei'chant-Taylers. 



256 

This song, containing five more verses, being ended, the foot- 
marshal places the assistants, livery, and the companies on both 
sides of King*s-street, and the pensioners with their targets hung 
on the tops of the javelins ; in the rear of them the ensign-bearers; 
drums and fifes in front ; he then hastens the foins and budge- 
batchelors, together with the gentlemen ushers, to Guildhall, 
where his Lordship is again saluted by the artillerymen with three 
volleys more, which concludes their duty. His land attendants 
pass through the gallery or lane so made, into Guildhall; after 
which the company repairs to dinner in the hall, and the several 
silk-works and triumphs are likewise conveyed into Blackwell- 
hall ; and the officers aforesaid, and the children that sit in the 
pageants, there refresh themselves until his Lordship hath dined. 
At the dinner in Guildhall, his Lordship and the guests being 
all seated, the city music begin to touch their instruments with 
very artful fingers. Their ears being as well feasted as their pa- 
lates, and a concert lesson or two succeeding, ' a sober person 
with a good voice, grave humour, and audible utterance, proper 
to the condition of the times,' sings a song called The Protestants* 
Exhortation, the burden whereof is. Love one another, and the 
subject against the catholics. The song being ended, the musi- 
cians play divers new airs, which having done, three or four 
* habit themselves according to the humour of the song,' and 
one of them chanteth forth The Plotting Papist's Litany, in 
ten stanzas, the first of which ends with 

Joyntly then wee '1 agree, 
To sing a Litany, 
And let the burden be, 

Ora pro nobis. 

The Ijitany^ concluded, and night approaching, the festival 



a Nearly a century aud a half after the above-mentioned Litany, composed 
by the City Laureate, was sung in character for the entertainment of the cor- 
poration of London, I was necessarily present for three successive days dur- 
ing certain trials in Guildhall, when the celebration of Lord Mayor's day by 
a Mock Litany on the same spot, might have been among the serviceable pre- 
cedents cited to the uries. 



%51 

terminates. Whereupon his Lordship, attended by a retinue of 
his own company, takes coach and is conducted to Skinner*s-hall, 
and being housed, those attendant on him then depart, and the 
triumphs and silk- works by the care of the master ai lificers being 
lodged for that night in Blackwell-hall, are on the next day con- 
veyed to Merchant-Taylors'-hall. 

In 1687 the pageants were very costly, and prepared at the ex- 
pense of the company of Goldsmiths, to which Sir John Shorter, 
Knt. the Lord Mayor for that year belonged. Matthew Taub- 
man describes the festival as ' a liberal and unanimous assembly 
of all the chiefs of the imperial city of the most flourishing king- 
dom in the universe: this year, adorned with the presence of 
their most sacred majesties, the king, (James II.) Queen, Queen- 
dowager, Prince and Princess of Denmark, with all the chief 
nobility and principal officers of the court; the archbishop of 
Canterbury, and chief prelates of the church ; the Lord Chan- 
cellor, Lord Chief Justice, and all the learned judges of the 
laws; with all foreign ministers, ambassadors, envoys, residents, 
who having observed the tables of the most puissant princes, and 
seen the most hospitable preparations of foreign nations, rest here 
amazed at the ne plus ultra of all entertainments!' It should be 
mentioned that Taubman was the city Poet ; and that since the 
visit of Charles II. in J 674, the Lord Mayor on the day of his 
mayoralty had not entertained the king. He says, ' we must not 
omit the stateliness of the morning procession and progress by 
water to Westminster, where his Lordship once a year, (as the 
Duke of Venice to the sea) weds himself to the Thames with a 
ring of surrounding barges, that being also a part of his dominion.' 
The pageants were four in number and exceedingly splendid, and 
the principal character in each delivered a versified address to the 
Lord Mayor. One of the pageants, a ship, the Unit^ of London, 
a merchant adventurer to Norway and Denmark, was an honour 
paid to the Lord Mayor by his company, on account of his lord- 
ship's mercantile occupation. This ship, laden with all sorts of 
timber for ship and house building, and architecture, represented 
his lordship's way of traffick. It measured in length from the 



258 

poop to the stern an hundred and forty-jive feet, and in height 
forty-five feet from the water to the stern. She carried twenty- 
two guns, with ancients, pendents, streamers, flags, tackUng, an- 
chors, and all sorts of rigging, appertaining to a merchantman of 
that burden. On board were a captain and his mate, a gunner 
and his mate, a boatswain, and a full complement of men, care 
being taken to assign to each man his proper station ; some at the 
main tack, others the braces, others the bowlines ; some climbing 
up the ladders to the main-top, and others sitting across the yard- 
arm. The mariners were dressed in Indian stripes, and rugged 
yarn caps, blue, white, and red. The captain, dressed in Indian 
silk with a rich fur cap, being placed in the stern with several 
trumpets, on the boatswain giving a signal by his whistle, accosted 
his Lordship with a speech. A pageant of such a description, 
and of such enormous bulk, it is almost difficult in our times to 
conceive as having been erected at so late a period ; yet structures 
of corresponding magnitude are described ou other occasions, and 
the fact is beyond all doubt. 

The Goldsmiths' pageant in this show was equally imposing, 
and must have been of amazing size. It was a * Hieroglyphic 
of the Company,' consisting of a spacious laboratory or work- 
bouse, containing several conveniences and distinct apartments, 
for the diff^erent operators and artificers, with forges, anvils, ham- 
mers, and all instruments proper for the mystery of the Gold- 
smiths. In the middle of the frontispiece, on a rich golden chair 
of state, sat St. Dunstan, the ancient patron and tutelar guar- 
dian of the company. He was attired, to express his prelatical 
dignity and canonization, in a robe of fine lawn, with a cope over 
it of shining cloth of gold reaching to the ground. He wore a 
golden mitre beset with precious stones, and bore in his left hand 
a golden crosier, and in his right a pair of Goldsmith's tongs. Be- 
hind him were Orpheus and Amphion playing on melodious in- 
struments ; standing more forward were the Cham of Tartary, and 
the grand Sultan, who being ' conquered by the Christian harmony 
seemed to sue for reconcilement.' At the steps of the prelatical 
throne was a goldsmith's forge and furnace, with fire, crucibles. 



on 



9 



and gold, and a workman blowing the bellows. On each side 
was a large press of gold and silver plate. Towards the front 
were shops of artificers and jewellers all at work with anvils, ham- 
mers, and instruments for enamelling, beating out gold and silver 
plate ; on a step below St. Diinstan, sat an assay-master, with his 
trial-balance and implements. There were two apartments for 
the processes of disgrossing, flatting, and drawing gold and silver 
wire, and the fining, melting, smelting, refining, and separating of 
gold and silver, both by fire and water. Another apartment con- 
tained a forge with miners in canvas breeches, red waistcoats and 
red caps, bearing spades, pickaxes, twibbles, and crows for sink- 
ing shafts and making adits. The Lord Mayor having approached 
and viewed the curiosity of the pageant was addressed in 

A Sfeech by St. Dunstan. 

Waked with this musick from my silent urn, 
Your patron Dunstan conies t' attend your turn. 
Amphion and old Orpheus playing by, 
To keep our forge in tuneful harmony. 
These pontifical ornaments I wear, 
Are types of rule and order all the year: 
In these white robes none can a fault descry, 
Since all have liberty as well as I : 
Nor need you fear the ship wrack of your cause, 
Your loss of charter or the penal laws, 
Indulgence granted by your bounteous prince, 
Makes for that loss too great a recompence. 
This charm the Lernaean Hydra will reclaim ; 
Your patron shall the tameless rabble tame. 
Of the proud Cham I scorn to be afear'd; 
I'll take the angry Sultan by the beard. 
Nay, should the Devil intrude amongst your foes. [Enter Devil. 
Devil. What then ? 
St. Dunstan. Snap, thus, I have him by the nose ! 

The most prominent feature in the Devil's face being held by 
St. Dunstau's tongs, after the prelate had duly spurned the sub- 
mission of the Cham of Tartary and the Grand Sultan, a silver- 
smith with three other workmen proceeding to the great anvil, 
commenced working a plate of massy metal, singing and keeping 



260 

time upon tlie anvil. Upon this, Taubman says, * the speech 
being ended, the pageant moves easily, being led by a guard of 
twenty-four in the front, twelve of which are lictors in Roman 
habiis, bf aring axes in their hands, with head-pieces, and leopards' 
heads on eacli shoulder, as also on their buskins ; and twelve yeo- 
men braring blunderbusses, apparelled after the same manner, 
with head-pieces and buskins ; besides green men, swabs, satyrs, 
and attendants innumerable.' Before the arrival of the Lord 
Mayor and hts train at Guildhall, his majesty passed on horseback 
through the city with a large guard to attend him, led up by the 
Duke of Northumberland, and the foot guard by the Lord 
Craven. The royal visitants dined at a table raised upon the 
hustings at the east end of the hall ; the foreign embassadors, the 
lords of the council, and others of the peerage and nobility, at the 
two next tables raised on each side of the hall ; the Lord Mayor, 
the citizens of the different liveries at several tables which filled 
the whole body of the hall, and the Aldermen dined at a table 
raised at the west end. His Lordship beginning iheir Majes- 
ties' healths, the hall was filled with huzzas and acclamations. At 
dinner, before the banquet, a loyal song was provided for the en- 
tertainment uf his majesty. 

The printed account of Lord Mayor's Show next year, the year 
of that king's abdication, is entitled, ' London's Anniversary Fes- 
tival, performed on Monday, October 29, 1688, for the entertain- 
ment of the Right Hon. Sir John Chapman, Knt. Lord Mayor 
of the City of London ; being their great year of Jubilee : with 
a panegyric upon the restoring of the charter ; and a sonnet pro- 
vided for the entertainment of the king;' also by Taubman, 
the Citv Laureate. On the following Lord Mayor's day, Octo- 
ber 9i9, 1689, the Prince of Orange being seated in the vacant 
throne as king William HI., he dined at Guildhall with Queen 
Mary, the Prince and Princess of Denmark, the vv hole court, 
and both houses of Parliament, when there were ' several pa- 
geants and speeches, together with a song for the entertainment 
of their Majesties.' Taubman also prepared this pageant, and 
provided the same loyal song to entertain William HI. that he 



261 

had caused to be sung for the entertainment of James II. This 
was the second mayoralty of Sir Thomas Pilkington ; who being 
of the Skinner's company, a pageant in honour of their occupa- 
tion, consisted of * a spacious wilderness, haunted and inhabited 
with all manner of wild beasts and birds of various shapes and 
colours, even to beasts of prey, as wolves, bears, panthers, leo- 
pards, sables, and beavers ; likewise dogs, cats, foxes, and rabbits, 
which tost up now and then into a balcony fell oft upon the coTTi- 
panyshe^idsf and by ihem tost again into the crowd, afforded great 
diversion ; melodious harmony likewise allayed the fury of the 
wild beasts, who were continually moving, dancing, curvetting, 
and tumbling to the music' 

At the alteration of the style, the Lord Mayor's show, which 
had been on the £9ih of October, was changed to the 9th of 
November. The speeches in the pageants were usually com- 
posed by the city Poet, an officer of the corporation, with an 
annual salary, who provided a printed description for the mem- 
bers of the corporation before the day. Settle, the last city Poet, 
wrote the last pau)phlet intended to describe a Lord Mayor's 
Show; it was for Sir Charles Diincombe's, in 1708, but the 
Prince of Denmark's death the day before, prevented iheexhi- 
bition. The last lord mayor who rode on horseback at his mayor- 
alty was Sir Gilbert Healhcote in the reign of queen Anne. 

The modern exhibitions, bettered as they are by the men in 
armour under Mr. Marriott's judicious management, have no pre- 
tension to vie with the grandeur of the ' London Triumphs.' In 
1760, the Court of Common Council recommended pageants to 
be exhibited for the entertainment of their majesties on Lord 
Mayor's day. Although such revivals are inexpedient, yet, 
surely, means may be devised for improving the appearance of 
the present procession, without further expenditure from the city 
funds, or interfering with the pubhc appropriation of the allow- 
ance for the support of tbe civic dignity. 



2 K 



262 



XI. THE GIANTS IN GUILDHALL. 



arch*d so high that Giants may get through.* 

Shdkspeaye, 



All that remains of the Lord Mayor's Show, to remind the 
curiously informed of its ancient character, is in the first part of 
the procession. These are the poor men of the company to which 
the Lord Mayor belongs, habited in long gowns and close caps 
of the company's colour, bearing painted shields on their arms, 
but without javelins. So many of these head the show, as there 
are years in the Lord Mayor's age. Their obsolete costume and 
hobbling walk are sport for the unsedate, who, from imper- 
fect tradition, year after year, are accustomed to call them old 
bachelors. The numerous band of gentlemen-ushers in velvet 
coats, wearing chains of gold and bearing while staves, is reduced 
to half-a-dozen full-dressed footmen, carrying umbrellas in their 
hands. The antiquarian reminiscences occasioned by the throw- 
ing of substances that stone-eaters alone would covet, from the 
tops of the houses, can arise no more.* Even the giants in Guild- 
hall, elevated upon octagon stone columns, to watch and ward the 
great east window, stand unrecognized, except in their gigantic 
capacity. 

From the time when I was astonished by the information, that, 
' every day when the giants hear the clock strike twelve, they 
, _ — , . — . — i^^:^^'^ 

^ This practice, derived perhaps from the kindly showering of comfits and 
sweet-cakes peculiar to the pageant, has been abolished by the efforts of suc- 
cessive Lord Mayors. 




THU ©IJJ^TS or ^millLBIHlA] 



263 

come down to dinner/ I have had something of curiosity towards 
them. How came they there, and what are they for ? In vain 
have been my examinations of Stow, Howell, Strype, Noorthouck, 
Maitland, Seymour, Pennant, and numberless other authors of 
books and tracts regarding London. They scarcely deign to men^ 
tion them, and no one relates a syllable from whence we can 
possibly affirm that the giants of their day were the giants that 
now exist. To this remark there is a solitary exception. Hat- 
ton, whose New View of London bears the date of 1708, says 
in that work, * This stately hall being much damnify'd by the 
unhappy conflagration of the city in 1666, was rebuilt Anno 
1669, and extremely well beautified and repaired both in and 
outside, which cost about 2,500/., and 2 new Figures of Gigantick 
Magnitude will be as before''^ Presuming on the ephemeral in- 
formation of his readers at the time he published, Hatton has 
obscured his information by a brevity, which leaves us to sup- 
pose that the giants were destroyed when Guildhall was ' much 
damnify'd' by the fire of London in I666 ; and that from that 
period they had not been replaced. Yet it is certain that giants 
were there in 1699, when Ned Ward published his London 
Spy. Describing a visit to Guildhall, he says, ' We turned down 
King Street, and came to the place intended, which we entered 
with as great astonishment to see the giants, as the Morocco am- 
bassador did London when he saw the snow fall. I asked my 
friend the meaning and design of setting up those two lubberly 
preposterous figures ; for I suppose they had some peculiar end 
in it. Truly, says my friend, I am wholly ignorant of what they 
intended by them, unless they were set up to show the city what 
huge loobies their forefathers were, or else to fright stubborn 
apprentices into obedience; for the dread of appearing before 
two such monstrous loggerheads, will sooner reform their man- 
ners, or mould them into a compliance with their masters' will^ 
than carrying ihem before my Lord Mayor, or the Chamberlain 
of London ; for some of them are as much frighted at the names 

» Hatton's New View of LdndoiTi 17G8, 8vo. p. 607. 



264 

of Gog and Magogs as little children are at the terrible sound of 
Raw-head and Bloody-bones/ There is no doubt that at that 
time the city giants were far more popular than now; for in 
the same work, two passengers, who had slyly alighted from a 
coach without discharging it, at Bartholomew Fair, are addressed 
by the coachman, with ' Pa/ me my fare, or by Gog and Magog 
you shall feel the smart of my whipcord ;' an oath which in our 
time is obsolete, though in all probability it was common then, 
or it would not have been used by Ward in preference to 
his usual indecency. Again : as to Giants being in Guildhall be- 
fore Hatton wrote, and whether they were the present statues. 
On the 24th of April, 1685, there were ' wonderful and stupend- 
ous fire-works in honour of their majesties* coronation, (James 
II. and his queen) and for the high entertainment of their ma- 
jesties, the nobility, and Ciij/ of London, made on the Thames.'* 
Among the devices of this exhibition, erected on a raft in the 
middle of the river, were two pyramids ; between them was a 
figure of the sun in polished brass, below it a great cross, and be- 
neath that a crown, all stored with fire-works ; and a little before the 
pyramids ' were placed the statues of the two Giants of Guild- 
hall, in lively colours and proportions facing Whitehall, the backs 
of which were all filled with fiery materials,' and ' from the first 
deluge of fire till the end of the sport, which lasted near an hour, 
the tzco Giants, the cross, and the sun, grew all in a light flame 
in the figures described, and burned without abatement of mat- 
ter.' From this mention of * statues of the two giants of Guildhall, 
it is to be inferred, that giants were in Guildhall fourteen years 
before Ward's book was published, and that, probably, the fire- 
work-maker took them for his models, because their forms being 
familiar to the ' City of London,* their appearance would be an 
attraction as well as a compliment to his civic audience. Whe- 
ther the giants in the Hall then, were our present giants, will be 
satisfactorily determined. 



a See the ' Narrative,' by R. Lowman, 1685, folio, half sheet, 1685. 



265 

Until the last reparation of Guildhall, in 1815, the present 
giants stood with the old clock and a balcony of iron-work be- 
tween them, over the stairs leading from the Hall to the Courts 
of Law and the Council Chamber. When they were taken down, 
in that year, and placed on the floor of the hall, I thoroughly exa- 
mined them as they lay in that situation. They are made of wood,* 
and hollow within, and from the method of joining and gluing 
the interior, are evidently of late construction, but they are too 
Substantially built for the purpose of being either carried or drawn, 
or any w^ay exhibited in a pageant. On inspecting them at that 
period, I made minute inquiry of an old and respectable officer 
of Guildhall, with whom they were favourites, as to what particu- 
lars existed in the city archives concerning them ; he assured me 
that he had himself anxiously desired information on the same sub- 
ject, and that after an investigation through the different offices, 
there was not a trace of the period when they commenced to be, 
nor the least record concerning them. This was subsequently con- 
firmed to me by gentlemen belonging to other departments. 

Just before 1708, the date of Hatton's book, Guildhall had been 
repaired ; and Hatton says, ' in the middle of this front are depen- 
siled in gold these words, JReparata et Ornata Thoma RawUnson, 
Milit, Majore, An. Dom. m.dcc.vi.' From whence, and his 
observation, in the extract first quoted, that ' two new figures of 
gigantic magnitude will be as before,' he intends his reader to 
understand that, as before that reparation there had been two 
giants, so, with the new adornment of the hall there would be two 
new giants. 

The illustration, or rather proof of Hatton's meaning, is to be 
found in * The Gigantick History of the two famous Giants in 
Guildhall, London'^ This very rare book, and I call it so because 

a Noorthouck writing in 1773, (Hist, of London, 4to. p. 590,) erroueoosl/ 
affirms that the giants are made of pasteboard. 

b * Third Edition, corrected. London: Printed forTfao. Boreman, Bookseller, 
near the Giants in Guildhall, and at the Boot and Crown, on Ludgate Hill, 
1741.'— 2 vols, 64mo. 



2M 

the copy I consult is the only one I ever saw, it is unnecessary to 
extract more from than is really essential to the present purpose. 
It states, that ' Before the present giants inhabited Guildhall, there 
were two giants made only of wicker-work and pasteboard, put 
together with great art and ingenuity : and those two terrible ori- 
ginal giants had the honour yearly to grace my Lord Mayor's 
show, being carried in great triumph in the lime of the pageants ; 
and when that eminent annual service was over, remounted their 
old stations in Guildhall^ — till by reason of their very great age, old 
Time, with the help of a number of city rats and mice, had eaten 
up all their entrails. The dissolution of the two old, weak, and 
feeble giants, gave birth to the two present substantial, and majestic 
giants ; who, by order, and at the city charge, were formed and 
fashioned. Captain Richard Saunders,* an eminent carver in King 
Street, Gbeapside, was their father ; who, after he had completely 
finished, clothed, and armed these his two sons, they were imme- 
diately advanced to those lofty stations in Guildhall, which they 
have peaceably enjoyed ever since the year 1708.' From the title 
of the * Gigantick History' it appears to have been published within 
Guildhall itself, when shops were permitted there -^ so that Bore- 
man, the publisher, had the best means that time and place could 
afford of obtaining true information, and for obvious reasons he was 



a citizen 



Of credit and renown, 

A trainband captain .* Cowper. 

^ There were also shops formerly within IVestminster-hallf on each side, along 
the whole length of the hall. 1 have a print of its interior in that state, abont 
the year 1720, with books, prints, gloves, and other articles displayed for sale in 
cases against the walls, and on the counters, at which people are being served; 
lawyers and their clients walk and converse in the middle of the hall ; the 
judges are sitting in ' open court,' the courts being merely partitioned off from 
the bodyof the hall to the height of eight or nine feet, with the side bars on the 
outside at which the attorneys moved for their rules of course. Exeter Change 
now, except as to width, is a pretty exact resemblance of \Vestn)inster-hall 
then. Ned Ward relates, that he and his companion visited Westminster-hall and 
* walked down by the sempstresses, who were very nicely digitising and pleat- 
ing turn-overs and ruffles for the young students, and coaxing them with tbieir 
amorous looks, obliging cant, and inviting gestures.' 



^67 

unlikely to state what was not correct. It is further related ia this 
work, that * the first honour which the two ancient wicker-work 
giants were promoted to in the city, was at the Restoration of 
King Charles II., when with great pomp and majesty they graced 
a triumphal arch which was erected on that happy occasion at the 
end of King Street, in Cheapside.' This was before the fire of 
London, by which the hall was ' much damnify'd,* but not burned 
down ; for the conflagration was principally confined to the wooden 
roof, and, according to this account, the wicker^giants escaped, till 
their infirmities, and the labors of the ' city rats' rendered it ne- 
cessary to supersede them. 

That wicker was used in constructing figures for the London 
pageants is certain. Haywood, in his description of the page- 
ants of the Lord Mayor, Raynton's Show in 1632, says, that 
'the tnoddellor and composer of these seuerall pieces, Maister 
Gerard Christmas, found these pageants and show-es of wicker 
and paper, and reduc't them to sollidity and substance.' But, to 
prove the validity of the statement in the ' Gigantick History,' 
that the present giants were put up upon the reparation of the 
hall in 1706, an examination of the city archives became neces- 
sary, and as the History fortunately mentions Captain Richard 
Saunders as the carver, the name became a clue to successful 
inquiry. Accordingly, on examination of the city accounts at 
the chamberlain's office, under the head of ' Extraordinary Works,' 
for 1707, I discovered among the sums ' Paid for repairing of the 
Guildhall and Chappeil,' an entry in the following words : 

To Richard Saunders, Carver, Seaventy pounds, by j 

order of the Co'mittee for Repairing Guildhall, \ >^qi^ 
dated y^x^^ of April, 1707, for work by him^ 
done, - 

This entry of the payment confirms the relation of the Gi* 
ganlic historian. Saunders's bill, which doubtless contained the 
charges for the two giants, and all the vouchers before 1786, 



^68 

belonging to the Chamberlain's office, were destroyed by a fire 
there in that year. Beyond this single item, corroborating the nar- 
rative of the ' Gigantick History,' there is no information to be 
obtained at Guildhall, where ray researches were obligingly as- 
sisted by the prompt kindness of Henry Woodthorpe, jun. Esq. 
deputy town-clerk, William Mounlague, Esq. clerk of the works, 
and B. W. Scott, Esq. of the chamberlain's office. 

Giants were part of the pageantry used in different cities of the 
kingdom. By an ordinance of the Mayor, aldermen, and common- 
council of Chester,^ for the setting of the watch on the eve of the 
festival of St. John the Baptist, in 1564, it was directed that there 
should be annually, according to ancient custom, a pageant, consist- 
ing of four giants J with animals, hobby-horses, and other figures, 
therein specified.^ In 1599, Henry Hardman, Esq. the Mayor 
of that year, from religious motives, caused the giants in the 
Midsummer show * to be broken, and not to goe the Devil 
in his feathers,^ and he provided a man in complete armour to go 
in their stead ; but in 1601, John RatclyfFe, a beer-brewer, being 
mayor, set out the giants and the Midsummer show as usual. On 
the Restoration of Charles II. new ones were ordered to be made,, 
and the estimate for finding the materials and workmanship of the 
fotir great giants, as they were before, was at five pounds a giant; 
and four men to carry them at two shillings and sixpence each. 
The materials for making these Chester giants were deal-boards, 
nails, pasteboard, scaleboard, paper of various sorts, buckram, size 
cloth, and old sheets for their bodies, sleeves and shirts, which 
were to be coloured ; also tinsel, tinfoil, gold and silver leaf, and 
colours of different kinds. A pair of old sheets were to cover 
the father and mother giants, and three yards of buckram were 
provided for the mother's and daughter's hoods. There is an entry 
in the Chester charges of one shilling and fourpence ' for arsenic 
to put into the paste to save the giants from being eaten by the 

* Harl. MSS. 1368. *> Harl. MSS. 2125. 



269 

rats ;** a precaution, which, if adopted in the formation of the old 
wicker-giants of London, was not effectual, though how long they 
had ceased to exist before the reparation of the hall, and the car^ 
ving of their successors, does not appear. One conjecture may 
perhaps be hazarded, that, as after the Mayor of Chester had 
ordered the giants there to be destroyed, he provided a man in 
armour as a substitute; so perhaps the dissolution of the old 
London Giants, and the incapacity of the new ones for the duty 
of Lord Mayor's show, occasioned the appearance of the men in 
armour in that procession. 

However stationary the present ponderous figures were destined 
to remain, there can scarcely be a question as to the frequent use 
of their wicker predecessors in the corporation shows. The 
giants were great favourites in the pageants.'' Stow, in describ- 
ing the ancient setting of the nightly watch in London on St. 
John's eve, relates that * the Mayor was surrounded by his footmen 
and torch-bearers, and followed by two henchmen on large horses : 
the Mayor had, besides his giant, three pageants ; whereas the 
sheriffs had only two, besides their giants, each with their morris 
dance and one henchman.*^' It is related, that to make the peo- 
ple wonder, these giants were armed, and marched as if they 
were alive, to the great diversion of the boys, who, peering under, 
found them stuffed with brown paper.*^ A character in Marston's 
* Dutch Courtezan,' a comedy acted in l605, says, ' Yet all will 
scarce make me so high as one of the Gyanfs stilts that stalks 
before my Lord Mayor's Pageants.'^ 

a Strutt's Sports, Pref. p. xxvl. '' Strutt, p. xxiii. 

Giants were introduced into tiie May-games. * On the 26th of May, 1555, 
was a gay May-game at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, with giants and hobby-horses, 
drums and guns, morris-dancers, and other minstrels.' — (Strypes Memorials.) 
Burton (in his Anatomy of Melancholy) includes giants among the ordinary do- 
mestic recreations of winter. 

« Strutt, p. 319. ^ Brand, i. p. 257. 

^ Stilts to encrease the statue of the giants^ and the introduction of the 
morris-dance f are instances of the desire to gratify the fondness of our an- 
cestors for strange sights and festive amusements. A cock dancing on stilts 

2 L 

/ 



Q70 

It has been already mentioned/ that on queen Elizabeth's progress 
to her coronation, Gogmagog and Corinaeus, two giants, were sta- 
tioned at Temple-bar. It is not certain, yet it is probable, that these 
were the wicker giants brought from Guildhall for the occasion. In 
the reign before, when queen Mary and Philip II. of Spain made 
their public entry, there was at London bridge a grand spectacle, 
with two images representing two giants, the one named Cori- 
nens, and the other Gog-magog, holding between them certain 
Latin verses,'' There is scarcely a likelihood that these were any 

to the music of a pipe and tabor, is in Strutt's Sports (plate xxiii. p. 221,) 
from a book of prayers written towards the close of the thirteenth century, 
(Harl. MSS. 6563). Strutt says that in the present day this may probably be 
considered as a mere effort of the illuminator's fancy: to show, however, that 
it was probably a real performance, he exemplifies the teachableness of birds ; 
to whichmay be added, that I have seen a hen, one of whose limbs was broken 
by accident and replaced by a wooden leg, walking among her companions 
apparently without inconvenience. 

A few readers, I know, will pardon me for introducing an etching, (see plate) 
of a Fools' Morris Dance, from a picture painted in a sort of stone colour, 
shaded with brown. The principal performer is striding on stilts, and with a 
bauble or whip of long bladders in his right hand, flaps one of his companions, 
lying on the ground, while he bears on high, in his left hand, two common 
bladders, which another figure endeavours to reach. Two of the dancers 
seem, by their position, to give full effect to their bells ; and for the same pur- 
pose, another puts a barrel in motion, by treading on it. To each leg of these 
five dancers are thirty-two bells : they wear loose coats, cut in a Vandyke 
form at the bottom, with tassels on the points: tassels are also attached to 
their hanging sleeves, and to the tops of their caps, which come over in front 
like the fool's cock's-comb. This exhibition takes place, to the music of a 
drum and flute, on a stage lighted by a branch of four candles from the ceiling. 
The principal spectator is a female, whose waist is grasped by a person looking 
on over her shoulder ; two men in hats and cloaks are to the right of the flute- 
player, and in the other corner is a group of uncovered figures, one of whom 
seems to be a friar. The arch humour of the chief actor's countenance, and 
the dexterity with which he buffets and stilts, appear to denote hima jocnlator. 
But, without further remark, I submit tliis curious scene to the consideration 
of those who are better able to judge of its real character. Mr. Cruikshank's 
etching has preserved not only the spirit of the figures, but the minutise of the 
costume. 

a At p. 241. b Strutt's Sports, Pref. p. xxvii. 







^ 






> 



271 

other than Guildhall Giants, which on the occasion of a corpo- 
ration rejoicing, could be removed with the utmost ease. 

Orator Henley, on the 21st of October, 1730, availed himself 
of the anticipated civic festival for that year to deliver a Lecture 
upon it, mentioning the Giants, which he announced by news- 
paper advertisement as follows : — 

< At the ORATORY, 

' 'T'HE Corner of Lincoln's- Inn-Fields, near Clare-market, this 
"*• Day, being Wednesday, at Six o'Clock in tlie Evening, will be a new 
Riding upon an old Cavalcade, entituled 



The CITY in its GLORY: Or, 
My Lord Mayor's Shew: 

* Explaining to all Capacities that wonderful Procession, so much envy'd in 
Foreign Parts, and nois'd at Paris : on my Lord Mayor's Day; the fine Appear- 
ance and Splendor of the Companies of Trade ; Bear and Chain ; the Trum- 
pets, Drums, and Cries, intermix'd; the qualifications of my L — 's Horse, the 
whole Art and History of the City Ladies, and Beaux at Gape-stare in the Bal- 
conies; the Airs, Dress, and Motions ; the two giants walking out to keep 
Holiday ; like Snails o'er a Cabbage, says an old Author, they all crept along ; 
admir'd by their Wives, and huzza'd by the Throng.' 

There is no stronger evidence of the indifference to playfulness 
and wit at city Elections, than the almost total silence on those 
occasions respecting such ample subjects for allusion and parallel 
as the Giants in the Hall. Almost the only instance of their 
application in this way, is to be found in a handbill, on oc- 
casion of a mayoralty election, dated Oct. 4th, 18 16, addressed 
' To the London Tavern Livery and their Spouses/ It states, 

that ' the day after Mr. Alderman is elected Lord Mayor 

for the year ensuing, the following entertainments will be provided 
for your amusement gratis ; viz. L The Two Giants, at the 
bottom of the hall, will dance a minuet by steam, attended by 

Mr. Alderman , in a new wig upon an elastic principle, a 

Gentleman having bought half of his old one for the purpose of 
making a new peruke for the aforesaid giants.' This is the first 
humorous allusion to the Giants after their removal to their pre- 
sent station. 



%1% 

It is supposed, by the author of the ' Gigantick History/ that 
the Guildhall giants represent Corinaeus and Gogniagog, whose 
story seems to be to this effect. After the destruction of Troy, 
Brutus, who was the great grandson of ^neas, fled to Italy, mar- 
ried the daughter of Latinus, king of Latium, and succeeded him 
in the kingdom. At fifteen years of age, Brutus accidentally 
killing his father while hunting, was banished to Greece, and in 
course of time, collected a band of Trojans, on board a large 
fleet, and sailed in search of adventures. 

• in two daies and a night 



Upon the He of Lestrigons they light j 

And leaving of their ships at roade, to laud 
They wand'ring went the countrey for to view : 
Loe there a desert citie old they fand. 
And eke a temple (if report be true) 
Where Dian dwelt, of whom the Troian crew 
In sacrifice their captain counsell gave 
For good successe, a seat and soile to crane. 

And he no whit misliking their advice 

Went forth, and did before the altar hold 

In his right hand a cup to sacrifice, 

Fil'd both with wine, and white hind's-blood scarce cold ; 

And then before her statue straight he told 

Devoutly all his whole petition — 



When nine times he had spoken this, and went 
Foure times the altar round, and staid agen, 
He pour'd the wine and blood in hand he bent 
Into the fire 

He laid him then downe by the altar's side,- 
Upon the white hind's skin espred therefore : 
Of sweetest sleepe, he gave himselfe the more 
To rest surelie. Then seemed him before 

Diana chaste, the Goddesse, to appeare. 

And spake to him. 

She acquainted Brutus, that far to the west beyond Gaul was 
a sea-girt isle, which he should conquer and rule over, and his sons 



^73 

after him, to whoni oilier nations should become subject. Encou- 
raged by this prediction, they continued their adventures, 

And sail'd to Tuscane shores on Europe coast that lie. 
When at the last amongst the men they did descrie 
Foure bauisht bands of Troians in distresse, 

Companions of Antenor in his flight, 
But Corinaus was their captain than, 
For connsell graue a wise and worthie wight ; 
In wars the praise of valiantnesse he wan. 
Lord Brutus liked well this noble man, 

With him full oft confer of fates he wold, 

And vnto him the oracles he told. 

With this reinforcement they again set sail, and landed at the 
haven of Loire in France. Being attacked by the king GofFarius, 
two hundred Trojans under CorincEUS succeeded presently in 
utterly routing the Frenchmen ; but Corinceus, eager to pursue the 
flying enemy, advanced so far before his follovv'ers, that the fugi- 
tives returned to slay him — 

There he alone against them all, and they 
Against him one, with all their force did fight: 

He achieved prodigies of valour, until Brutus coming up with a 
fresh troop, ended the strife : the French host were wholly discom- 
fited, and nearly all destroyed by the victorious Trojans. Turon, 
the valiant nephew of Brutus, was slain in this battle, and being bu- 
ried on the spot, gave name to the city of Tours, which the Tro- 
jans built to vex the French ; but their force being much weakened 
by their successes, Brutus and Corinaeus set sail once more, and 
arrived at Totness in Devonshire, in the island of Albion. 

Those mightie people borne of giants brood 
That did possesse this ocean-bounded land, 
They did subdue, who oft in battell stood 
Gainst them in field, untill by force of hand 
They were made subject unto Brute's command : 

Such boldness then did in the Briton dwell. 

That they in deeds of valour did excell, 



S74 

Unable to cope with these experienced warriors none escaped, 

Save certain giants whom they did pursue, 
Which straight to caves in mountaines did them get. 
So fine veere woods, and floods, and fountaines set 
So cleare the aire, so temperate the clime, 
They never saw the like before that time. 

Perceiving that this was the country, denoted by the oracle, 
wherein they were to settle, Brutus divided the island among 
his followers, which with reference to his own name he called 
Britain. 

To Corinaeus gave he, frank and free. 

The land of Cornwall for his service done, 
And for because from giants he it won, 

Corinseus was the better pleased with this allotment, inasmuch 
as he had been used to warfare with such terrible personages. 
The employment he liked fell afterwards to his lot. For, as 
on the sea-coast of Cornwall, Brutus was accustomed to keep 
a peaceable anniversary of his landing, so on a certain day, being 
one of these festivals, a band of the old giants made their appear- 
ance, and suddenly breaking in upon the mirth and rejoicings, 
began another sort of amusement than at such a meeting was 
expected. The Trojans seized their arms, and a desperate battle 
was fought, wherein the giants were all destroyed, save Goemagog, 
the hugest among them, who being in height twelve cubits, was 
reserved alive, that Corinceus might try his strength with him in 
single combat. Corinaeus desired nothing more than such a match, 
but the old giant in a wrestle caught him aloft and broke three of 
his ribs. Upon this Corinaeus being desperately enraged, collected 
all his strength, heaved up Goemagog by main force, and bearing 
him on his shoulders to the next high rock, threw him headlong, 
all shattered, into the sea, and left his name on the cliff, which 
has been ever since called Lan-Goemagog, that is to say, the 
Giant's Leap. Thus perished Goemagog, commonly called Gog- 
magog, the last of the giants. Brutus afterwards built a city in a 
chosen spot, and called it Troja Nova, which changed in time to 



275 

Trinovantum, and is now called London. An ancient writer 
records these achievements in Britain to have been performed 
at the time when Eli was the high-priest in Judea.* 

Mr. Archdeacon Nares in his Glossary, corroborates the Gi- 
gantick Historian's supposition concerning the personages that 
the Guildhall statues represent, by a quotation from the under- 
mentioned work, of some old verses printed on a broad sheet, 
1660: 

And such stout Coronaus was, from whom 
Cornwall's first honor, and her name doth come^ 
For though he sheweth not so great nor tall, 
In his dimensions set forth at Guildhall^ 
Know 'tis a poet only can define 
A gyant's posture in a gyant's line. 
***** 

And thus attended by his direful dog, 
The gyant was (God bless us) Gogmagog, 

British Bibliogr. iv. p. 277. 

The author of the Gigantick History supposes, that as ' Cori- 
naeus and Gogmagog were two brave giants, who nicely valued their 
honour, and exerted their whole strength and force in defence of 
their liberty and country ; so the city of London, by placing these 
their representatives in their Guildhall, emblematically declare, 
that they will, like mighty giants, defend the honour of their coun- 
try and liberties of this their city, which excels all others, as 
much as those huge giants exceed in stature the common bulk of 
mankind.' Each of these Giants, as they now stand, measures 
upwards of fourteen feet in height : the young one is believed to 
be Corinffius, and the old one Gog-magog. 

Such being the chief particulars respecting these enormous 
carvings, the terror of the children, the wonder of the 'pren- 
tices, and the talk of the multitude of former days, I close the 



a This account of Corinaeus and Gogmagog, is chiefly extracted from Mil- 
tori's Early History of Britain^ b. i. and the Mirrour for Magistrates, Each of 
these works deriving most of the facts related from Jeffery of Monmouth. 



276 

subject, satisfied with having authenticated their origin. In order 
to perpetuate their appearance, they are drawn and etched by Mr. 
George Cruikshank, wliose extraordinary talents have been hap- 
pily exercised on my more original fancies. As this may be the 
last time that I shall ever write Mr. Cruikshank's name for the 
press, I cannot but express my astonishment, that a pencil which 
commands the admiration of every individual qualified to appre- 
ciate art, should be disregarded by that class, whose omission to 
secure it in their service, is a remarkable instance of disregard 
to their own interests as the midvvives of literature. 



And here. Reader, must end our desultory intercourse on these 
affairs. It has not been conducted on my part so well as it might, 
had time and circumstances permitted me to completely avail 
myself of the few facilities in my power. ' Thou wilt, may 
be, not thank me for what I have done, and complain of me for 
having left so much undone. All this I do believe thou mayest 
do justly ; but thou wilt be my witness that I have been at some 
trouble. In short, if thou ever wert an editor of such books, thou 
wilt have some compassion on my failings, being sensible of the 
toil of such sort of creatures ; and if thou art not yet an editor, 
I beg truce of thee till thoa art one, before thou censurest my 
endeavours.' 



FAREWELL! 



ADDENDA. 



' Let it be book'd with the rest.' Shakspeare. 



The present note is composed of a few scraps, selected from 
a parcel thrown into the fire. This saving regard, with the rais- 
cellaneousness of the preceding sheets, and a desire to keep the 
press going while the plate of the Fools* Morris Dance was in 
preparation, are the real occasion and only apology for more last 
words. 



Brief notice of De Partu Firginis, a Poem, hy Sanna- 
zarius — Triumph of Death, a Carnival Pageant, by Pietro 
de Cosimo—Hell Torments on the Arno — Harmony and Fla- 
gellation of the Order of St, Philip Neri—St. Macarius and 
his Flea —Natives of Strood in Kent horn with tails — Strange 
licence to a book — Ribera and Lessius on the dimensions of 
Hell — Our Lady of CarmeVs confraternity — St. Ignatius' s 
Vision of the Trinity — Picture of it by Rubens — Origin of 
the letters I H S in Churches — The Triangle, an emblem of 
the Trinity — Rammohun Roy's refution of it — Beehive of the 
Romish Church — Catholic allegory of Bells — The Ringer's 
Guide — Satan and the Soul — All for Money, 

Sannazarius, born at Naples in 1458, ranks with Vida and Fracastorius, as 
the first of the Latin poets among the Italians, chiefly on account of a poem 
called De Partu Virginis, It took him several years to compose, and twenty 
years to revise ; and to commemorate the subject he founded a church, and 
dedicated it * Al Satiiissima Pario della Gran Madro di Dio.' The poem is 
particularly described in a Prefatory Discourse to a new Edition of the Psalms of 
David ; translated into Latin verse, by Dr. Arthur Jonston, Physician to King 
Charles I. (London, 1741, 8vo.), Whence it appears that Sannazarius introduces 
highly dramatic scenes from the New Testament Apocrypha, with classical 

2 M 



278 

niachinery j and produces anachronisms strikingly similar to the same incou" 
gruity in the representation of the Feast of the Ass. It is wonderful that with pre- 
tension to taste he could have penned so extraordinary a production. Making 
the virgin, in astonishment at the annunciation^ become pale and look down 
upon the ground, he compares her surprise to that of a poor damsel, who, see- 
ing a ship under sail coming towards her, wliilst she is gathering cockles on the 
sea-shore with her petticoats tucked up, is in such confusion that she neither 
lets down her petticoats, nor runs to her companions, but trembles in silence, 
and is immoveable with fear. After the conception, Fame descends to the 
infernal regions to inform the inhabitants of the approaching birth, and to ac- 
quaint them that they are to leave Tartarus and Acheron, and the howling and 
barking of the three-backed dog. This occasions great joy among the blessed 
spirits, and David being inspired to sing, has a prophetic vision, after relating 
which the blessed shout for joy, and carry David on their shoulders along the 
bank of the river. At this the Furies are troubled, and Cerberus being fright- 
ened, frightens the damned with his terrible howling, and hides his black tail 
between his legs. Mary's delivery takes place in a cave^ according to the 
legend of the Protevangelion, xii. 14, xiv. 4, &c. in the Apoc, N. Test. She 
wraps up the child and puts him into her bosom, the cattle cherish him with 
their breath, an ox falls on his knees, and an ass does the same. The poet de- 
claring them both happy, after many commendations, promises they shall be 
honoured at all the altars in Rome, and apostrophizes the virgin on occasion of 
the respect the ox and ass have shewn her. This introduction of the ox and 
the ass warming the infant in the crib, with their breath, is a fanciful construc- 
tion by catholic writers on Isaiah, 1. 3, * The ox knoweth his ownerj and the as» 
his master's crib :^ in engravings they are so represented to the present day, 
as may be seen by reference to rude wood-cuts attached to Christmas carols. 
After relating the particulars of the virgin's delivery, the poet makes God 
assemble the angels, while he sits on a throne with a large garment flying over 
his shoulders, which Nature watching day and night had woven for him : 

' Quam quondam, ut perhibent, vigilans noctesque diesque, 
Ipsa suo nevit rerum Natura Tonanti.' b. iii, v. 19, 20. 

Amongst other things represented upon this garment, are the shapeless clay 
out of which the iiuman race arose, birds flying through the air, beasts wan- 
dering in the wood?, fishes swimming in the sea, and the sea itself foaming. 
Crod in his speech to the angels, recommends them to be favourable to man- 
kind, and calls a female to him, named Laetitia, who happened at that time 
not to be employed in dancing. 



— Laetitiaui chofeis turn forte vacantem 



Advocat.' V. 93, 94. 

He sends her with her train to earth, to give notice of Christ's birth to the 
shepherdSi She tells them to go and see a queen rocking a cradle, and a king 
in straw, and vanishes with her train. The astonished shepherds cannot ima- 
gine what royal persons they are to inquire for, and wander over the heath all 
night, till at last they discover the cave by the braying of the ass. In a trans- 



279 

port of joy they pull up a vast laurel, a huge palm, and olive trees by the 
roots, and planting them round the cave, sing and dance, and make various 
kinds of melody. Joseph looks out of the cave, and asks what they are doing? 
Informing him by what means they w^ere sent thither, all of them shake hands, 
and go into the cave together, where they sing about forty lines, almost en- 
tirely from Virgil's pastorals. Angels then begin skirmii^ing in the clouds, 
and bring a crown of thorns, with nails, singing all the time. At this juncture, 
accidentally, Jordan, the azure king, is revolving things to come. Surrounded 
by his beautiful daughters, Glance, Doto, Proto, and others, he is chiefly em- 
ployed in noticing several figures engraven upon his urn, though ignorant of 
their meaning, wlien on a sudden, he sees new springs break out, and per- 
ceives the taste of his river to be changed. Putting his head out of ihe water, 
he discovers the banks all covered with flowers, and hears the shepherds and 
the angels shouting, and declaring that a God was come amongst them. Upon 
this, Jordan lifts up his hands to heaven, and relates all the miracles of Christ, 
which he says he had been informed of by Proteus. At t\\e conclusion of his 
speech, he flings about his shoulders the garment which the beautiful nymphs 
of the streams formerly wove for him in their humid caves ; and finally, plung- 
ing himself into the river, the fable ends. 

Italy, the birth-place of Sannazarius, the land of classic achievement in an- 
cient times, aud of superstitious fable and ceremony in after times, presented 
to christian poets and dramatists a rich and various harvest. From thence they 
supplied constant amusement to the lovers of the marvellous ; if it were 
seldom selected with ele^auce, this is rather ascribable to the restrictions pre- 
scribed by the sumptuary laws of spiritual domination, than to want of fancy in 
the purveyors for public entertainment. 

It is already noticed (at p. 192, ante) that from the Fathers of the Oratory, 
at Rome, proceeded the performances called Oratorios. The rules of this religious 
order savor of no small severity. By the Institutions of the Oratory (printed at 
Oxford, 1687, 8vo. p. 49) they are required to mix corporal punishments with 
their religious harmony : * From the first of November to the feast of the Re- 
surrection, their contemplation of celestial things shall be heightened by a con- 
sort of music; and it is also enjoined, that at certain seasons of frequent occur- 
rence, they all whip themselves in the oratory. And the custom is, that after 
half an hour's mental prayer, the officers distribute whips made of small cords 
full of knots, put forth the children, if there be any, and carefully shutting 
the .doors and windoxys, extinguish the other lights, except only a small candle 
so placed in a dark lanthorn upon the altar, that the crucifix may appear clear 
and visible but not reflecting any light, thus making all the room dark : then 
the priest in a loud and doleful voice, pronounceth the verse Jube Xiornine 
benediceref and going through an appointed service, comes /ipprehendite disci- 
plinanif &c.; at which words, taking their whips, they scourge their naked 
bodies during the recital of the 50th Psalm, Miserere^ and the 129th, De pro- 
fundisj with seyeral prayers; at the conclusion of which, upon a sign given, 
they end their whipping, and put on their clothes in the dark and in silence,' 
The Golden Legend relates an anecdote of St. Macarius which must im- 
press every one with certainty, that had the Saint lived so late, and been 
honoured by admissiop into the order of the Oratory, he would have practised 



280 

its rules. ' It happed on a tyme that he kylled a flee that bote hym j and 
M?han he sawe the blode of this flee, he repented hym, and anone unclothed 
hym, and wente naked in the deserte vi. monethes, and sufired hymselfe to be 
by ten of flyes.' But the same authority exemplifies the fact, that saints are not 
ahke forbearing; for the apostle of England, St. Austin, came to a certain 
town, inhabited by wicked people, who * refused hys doctryne and prechyng 
uterly, and drof hym out of the towne, castyng on hym the tayles of thorn- 
back, or lyke fysshes ; wherefore he besought Almyghty God to shewe hys 
jugement on them ; and God sent to them a shamefull token ; for the chyldren 
that were born after in the place, had tayles, as it is sayd, tyll they had repented 
them. It is said comynly that this fyli at Strode in Kente ; but blyssyd be 
Gode, at thys daye is no such deformyte.' 

Religious plays are shewn (at p. 169, ante) to have been common in Italy dur- 
ing the thirteenth century, where spiritual shows of all sorts were set forth in al- 
most every possible form. Sir John Hawkins, (History of Music, iii. 448.) from 
Felibien, has given an account of a spectacle, invented and exhibited at Flo- 
rence in the year 1510, by Pietro Cosimo,the painter, which Hawkins terms the 
most whimsical and at the same time the most terrifying that imagination can 
conceive. * Having taken a resolution to exhibit this extraordhiary spectacle at 
the approaching carnival, Cosimo shut himself up in a great hall, and there dis- 
posed so secretly every thing for the execution of his design, that no one had 
the least suspicion of what he was about. In the evening of a certain day in 
the carnival season, there appeared in one of the chief streets of the city a 
chariot painted black, with white crosses and dead men's bones, drawn by six 
buffaloes ; and upon the end of the pole stood the figure of an angel with the 
attributes of Death, and holding a long trumpet in his hands, which he sounded 
in a shrill and mournful tone, as if to awaken and raise the dead : upon the top 
of the chariot sat a figure with a scythe in its hand, representing Death, having 
under his feet many graves, from which appeared, halfway out, the bare bones 
of carcases. A great number of attendants, clothed in black and white, masked 
with Death's heads, marched before and behind the chariot, bearing torches, 
which enlightened it at distances so well chosen, that every thing seemed na- 
tural. There were heard as they marched, muflled trumpets, whose hoarse 
and doleful sounds served as a signal for the procession to stop. Then the se- 
pulcWes were seen to open, out of which proceeded, as by resurrection, bodies 
resembling skeletons, who sung in a sad and melancholy tone, airs suitable to 
the subject, as Dolor pianto e Penitenza, and others, composed with all that art 
and invention which the Italian music is capable of^ while the procession 
stopped in the public place, the musicians sung with a continued and tremulous 
voice, the psalm Miserere, accompanied with instruments covered with crape, 
to render their sounds more dismal. The chariot was followed by many per- 
sons habited like corpses, and mounted upon the leanest horses that could be 
found, spread with black housings, having white crosses and death's heads 
painted at the four corners. Each of the riders had four persons to attend, ha- 
bited in shrouds like the dead, each with a torch in one hand, and a standard 
of black taffeta, painted with white crosses, bones, and death's heads in the 
other. In short, all that horror can imagine most affecting at the resurrection 
of the dead, was represented at this masquerade, which was intended to repre- 



281 

sent the Triumph of Death. A spectacle so sad and mournful struck a damp 
through Florence; and, although in a time of festivity, made penitents of some, 
while others admiring the ingenious manner in which every thing was con- 
ducted, praised the whim of tb« inventor, and the execution of a concert so 
suitable to the occasion.' Appalling as this exhibition undoubtedly was, yet its 
terrors must have been exceeded by one in the same city, from whence Haw- 
kins supposes that Cosimo's was taken. This was the performance of the 
Torments of the Damned, at the festival of the 1st of May, 1304, when, accord- 
ing to Sismondi, the bed of the river Arno was transformed into a representa- 
tion of the Gulph of Hell, and all the variety of suffering that the imagination 
of monks or of the poet had invented, were inflicted, by streams of boiling 
pitch, flames, ice, and serpents, on real persons, whose cries and groans ren- 
dered the horrors of the scene complete. 

Few subjects have exercised curiosity to greater extent than Hell. The 
author of the Discovery of a world in the Moon, (1638, 12mo. p. 201.) relates 
that Francis Ribera, in his Commentary on a passage in the Revelations, 
(xiv. 20,) which says that the blood came out of the wine-press even unto the 
horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs, interprets 
' this number to be meant of Hell, and as expressive of its concavity,^ 
which he reckons at two hundred Italian miles ; but Lessius (De Morib. 1. 
xiii. c. 24,) thinks that this opinion gives them too much room in Hell, and 
therefore he guesses that it is not so wide ; for (saith he) the diameter of one 
league being cubically multiplied, will make a sphere capable of containing 
eight hundred thousand millions of damned bodies, allowing to each six feet 
in the square, whereas, says he, it is certain that there shall not be one hun< 
dred thousand millions in all that shall be damned.' The Golden Legend, alle- 
gorises the cross to be a wine-press, * in suche wyse that the blood of Christ 
sprang oute ; but our champyon fought soo strongly and defowled the pressonr 
soo foule, that he brake the bondes of synne and ascended into heaven ; and 
after thys he opened the taverne of heven and poured out the wine of the holy 
goost.* Nearly akin to these representations and speculations, are the miracu- 
lous stories that formerly obtained credence. A tract, printed at Douay, in 
1626, called Jardinet des D4lices Cilestes ; la plus reveUe par N. S. Jesus 
d Saincte Gertrude, bears the approbation *par nostre Sauveur mesme,' who 
says : * All which is in this book is agreeable to me, and full of the ineffable 
softness of my holy love, from which, as from a fountain, all is drawn that is 
here written. All that is in this book is composed, arranged, and written by 
me, I using the hands of others, according to my good will and pleasure.' 

Such were the inventions that created and gratified the craving of bi- 
gotted ignorance not two centuries ago. Indeed we find the most illustrioua 
devotees practising the grossest follies and propagating the silliest tales to 
effect their purposes. If in our days the supply is smaller, it is because dotard 
faith is less ; yet A Short Treatise of the Antiquity, Privileges, i^c of the Confra' 
ternity of our Blessed Lady of Mount Carmel, (London, 1796, 18mo.) revives 
many absurd tales, apparently with the hope that they may persuade its 
readers to become brethren of our Lady of Carmel. It states that * Good 
Christians have so great an esteem for religious Sodalities, that they are 
every where in Catholic countries most generally frequented ; some en- 



282 

rolling themselves in the confraternity of the most blessed trinity, others 
in that of the Rosary, &c.' Referring to the treatise itself for an enumeration 
of miracles and influences which no rational person would imagine could now 
be cited as inducements to such a purpose, it is arousing to turn to the Uft of 
St. Ignatius (by Father Bouhours, London, 1686, 8vo. p. SI.) for a Vision of the 
Trinity, whicli the biographer states that tlie Founder of the Jesuits was fa- 
Tonred with. * One day, in a most lively manner there was represented to 
him the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Going afterwards in a solemn proces- 
sion, all his thoughts were upon that mystery ; he could not speak but of the 
Trinity, but he spoke so that the most learned admired him, and the most 
ignorant were instructed by him. He wrote down his conceptions on no less 
than fourscore leaves, since lost.' A splendid picture from the pencil of Rubens, 
now in Warwick Castle, represents the Jesuit in his rapture, contemplating 
this mystery. His uplifted eyes are fixed on the letters T. H. S. blazing in the 
centre of a flame of fire. Yet these letters, which are still placed on the pul- 
pits and altar-pieces of Protestant churches, denote neither Trinity nor Unity, but 
only exemplify the ignorance and mistake of manuscript- writers in the early ages. 
This is shewn by Mr. Casley, in his preface to the Catalogue of the King's MSS, 
(p. xxiii). He says that ' in Latin M3S. the Greek letters of the word Christus, 
as also Jesus, are always retained, except that the terminations are changed 
acCording^to the Latin language. Jesus is written I H S, or in small cha- 
racters i h s, which is the Greek ilTs, or t «"?, an abbreviation of ina-ns. 
However, the scribes knew nothing of this for a thousand years before the in- 
vention of printing ; for, if they had, they would not have written i h s, for 
<>j«-y? ; but they ignorantly copied, after one another, such letters as they found 
put for those two words : nay, at length they pretended to find Jesus Homi- 
num Salvator comprehended in the word I H S ; which is another proof that 
they took the middle letter to be h not ». Tlie dash also over the word which 
is a sign of abbreviation, some have changed to the sign of the cross.' I had 
observed more on this subject, but wUhin the present year these letters have been 
constellated on the altar-piece of the church belonging to the parish wherein I 
reside; and desiring to owe nothing but good will to my neighbours, I suppress 
further remark, lest some of them may suppose that I design to reflect in an un- 
friendly way on a circumstance wherein, as to intention, they have unknowingly 
erred. The corruption of the note of abbreviation mentioned by Casley is 
common to Catholic books and in old prints, very frequently with the addition, 
beneath the letters, of the three nails of the cross, diverging from the points 
in a fan-like form. That there were four nails was maintained at one time, 
from a supposition that each foot was separately nailed, instead of both feet 
being transfixed by one nail ; but as, by the latter mode, the disposition of the 
limbs looks better to the eye, the best painters decide in its favor, while the 
number, three, has rendered it convenient as an emblem of the Trinity. 

The symbol denoting the coequality of persons in the Trinity by an ecjui- 
lateral triangle, has of late years been converted into a triangle, of which 
only two sides being equal, the third side is consequently unequal. This forms 
the base of a triangle consisting of one perfect rectangle and two acute angles, 
and by a strange confusion, the second person of the Trinity, already supposed 
^0 be comprehended in the figure of a triangle, is here superadded in the form 



i>83 

of a clove hovering beneath the base, with a circle of effulgent rays compre-' 
bending the whole. Vast numbers of prayer-books now in use are stamped in 
gold on the covers, with this senseless device. Indeed the incorrectness of the 
perfect Triangle as a symbol, is demonstrated by the celebrated Brahmin, Ram- 
mohun Roy, who having upon deliberate conviction, become a Christian, has 
published The Precepts of Jesus, the Guide to Peace and Happiness^ (London, 
1822, 8vo. p. 306.) which contains the refutation alluded to, says that ' The 
analogy between the Godhead and a triangle, in the first instance, denies to 
God any real existence ; for extension of all kinds, abstracted from position or 
relative situation, exists only in idea. Secondly, it destroys the unity attempted 
to be established between Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; for the three sides of 
a triangle are conceived of as separate existences. Thirdly, it denies to each 
of the three persons of God, the epithet God, inasmuch as each side cannot 
be designated a triangle, though the Father of the universe is invariably called 
God in the strict sense of the term.' Then he shows that the manner of arguing 
by a mathematical figure, is adapted to support the polytheism of the Hindoos, 
and would in fact, ' equally suit the Atheist ; for as the Trinity is represented 
by the three sides of a triangle, so the eternal revolution of nature without any 
divine person, may be compared to the circle, which is considered as having no 
sides or angles; or which, when considered as a polygon, having an infinite 
number of sides, the illustration of the Trinitarian doctrine by the form of the 
triangle, will by analogy, justify those sects who maintain the existence of an 
infinite number of persons in the Godhead,' &c. 

By allegory and symbol, the papacy ensnared the ignorant. The author of 
the Beehive of the Romish Church, says, in defence of his title, that * our dear 
and loving mother, the holie Church of Rome, ought not to scorne or disdaine, 
that wee doe compare her customs and orders to a Beehive, considering that she 
herselfe doth compare the incomprehensible generation of the Sonne of God 
from his father, together with his birth out of the pure and undefiled Virgine 
Marie, unto the Bees : which were in verie deede a great blasphemie, if the 
bees were not of so great valour and virtue, that by them wee might liken 
and compare the holie church of Rome. And seeing, she saith, that God is 
delighted with the giftes and presentes of the bees, why should not shee her- 
selfe exceedinglie rejoyce with our Bee HiveV Two curious designs on wood, 
inserted in this book represent the papal crown as a hive. Bees with shaven 
heads, mitres, cardinals' hats, &c. are flying around it, engaged in shriving, 
burying, saying mass, &c. A similar representation nearly occupies the title page 
of the Dutch translation printed in 1576. Without the explanation already 
given, it might be supposed, the title was from a story related in Stodford^s Ways 
of Rome's advancement, (1675, Svo. p. 107): * A woman's bees not thriving, by 
the advice of a neighbour, she steals a consecrated wafer, and piaceth it in one 
of her hives, hoping it would drive away the disease and bless their under- 
takings. The devout bees in honour of such a guest, fall to work, and with 
their honeycombs make a pretty little church, with windows, a door, a belfry, 
yea, and an altar too, upon which they laid the Host, and pay'd great rever- 
ence to it.* 

The worship of the Romish Church consists of allegory, symbol, and dramatic 
exhibition. Specimens of allegory are already in these sheets j but the contem- 



284 

plations of the Catbolics iu this way, are to an extent that modern Protestants 
can scarcely conceive. For instance ; the ancients at the feasts of Minerva and 
"Vulcan, consecrated Trumpets for religious uses, especially as antidotes against 
demons, thunder, storms, &c. To the same end, the Catholics baptize BellSf 
in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and dedicate them to saints, 
wsing holy water, holy oil, incense, and prayers, in the ceremony; and, ac- 
cording to the missal of Salisbury use, there were godfathers and godmothers to 
the bells, who gave them their names. Durandus, the great Catholic autho- 
rity for the mysterious services of his church, explains the allegorical signifi- 
cation of bells after their baptism. He says, {Ration. Divin. Offic. lib. i. cap. 4.) 
that bells being made of brass, and being therefore more shrill than the trumpets 
under the law, denote that God was then known to the Jews only, but now to 
all the world : that, as they are more durable, they signify that the preaching 
of the New Testament endures longer than the Jewish trumpets and sacri- 
fices, even unto the end of time, and that they represent preachers which 
call men to the faith. The bell denotes the preacher's mouth, according to 
the words of St. Paul, / am become as sounding brassj &c. ; the hardness of its 
metal implies the fortitude of the preacher's mind, according to the passage, 
I have given thee a forehead more hard than their forehead, ■ The clapper sounding 
the bell by striking on both sides, denotes the preacher's tongue publishing 
both the Testaments, and that the preacher should on one side correct vice in 
himself, and on the other side, reprove it in his hearers. The baud that ties 
the clapper, denotes the moderation of the tongue ; the wood on which the bell 
hangs, signifies the wood of the cross ; the iron that ties it to the wood, denotes 
the charity of the preacher, who being inseparably connected with the cross, 
exclaims, * Far be it from me to glory , except in the cross of our Lord.* The 
wheel that puts the bell in motion, signifies the preacher's mind, vvhich con- 
nected with the divine law, passeth it upon the people by constant preaching. 
The bell-rope denotes the humility of the preacher's life. The rope tied to 
the wood wherein the bell hangs, signifies that the scripture descendeth from 
the wood of the cross. The rope being formed of three cords, denotes that 
the scripture consisteth of a Trinity, viz. History, Allegory, and Morality ; 
the descent of the rope from the wood to the hand, signifies the descent of 
scripture from the mystery of the cross in the preacher's mouth, and that it 
comes to his hand, because the scripture should produce good works. The 
upward and downward motion of the rope, denotes that the scripture some- 
times speaks of high, and at other times of low matters, sometimes myste- 
riously, and at other times, plainly. Again, the downward motion, signifies 
the preacher's descent from contemplation to action ; the upward motion, when 
the scripture is exalted in contemplation; also the downward motion, sig- 
nifies the scripture when it is. expounded literally; and the upward motion, 
when it is expounded spiritually. 

A specimen is at hand of an attempt from another quarter to spiritualize 
Bells. In 1804, a .tract was published, entitled, * The Ringer^s true Guide, 
containing a safe Directory for every true Churchman; or an affectionate 
address to Ringers in every Church and Parish; By S. Beaufoy': (12mo.p.24). 
Mr. Beaufoy, seeing that * on a moderate calculation, we have more than 
seventy thousand ringers,' addresses them thus : ' If thou, reader, art a ringer. 



285 

lliou hast an active part In the church, and thou shouUlesf be careful to perform 
thy part with holy propriety.' He explains how ; — ' thou shouldest pray that 
thou mayest always fill thy office as God exhorts in his holy word, when he 
says, Whatsoever ye doy do all to the Glory of God, (1 Cor. x. 31). Hence it 
appears, that whenever thou art employed in ringing, thou shouldest ring to the 
glory of God.— I recommend to thy most serious consideration : Ist.What are 
the most material ends to be answered, by ringing ? 2dly. I would excite thee 
to examine whether thou hast practised ringing with a view to these important 
ends.' This, Mr. Beaumont attempts with mdre of good purpose than judg- 
ment. To what extent his piece is popular among the seventy thousand prac- 
titioners in ' tintinnabulary clatter,* experience does not enable me to say. 

Allied to allegory were such old spiritualizing romances as the Pilgremage 
of the Sowle, before alluded to (at p. 122) as pregnant * with beauties that 
delighted oar forefathers.' The author of that work, as afterwards old John 
Bunyan, delivers himself under the similitude of a dream, which, he says, be- 
fell him on a St. Laurence' night sleeping in his bed. He thought that he was 
travelling towards the City of Jerusalem, when Death struck his Body and Soul 
asunder; whereupon the foul and horrible Saihanas comes towards the Soulf 
which being in great terror, its Warden or Guardian Angel desires Sathanas to 
flee away and not meddle with it. Satan refuseSj alleging that God had per- 
mitted that no Soul which had done wrong should, on its passage, escape from 
being * snarlyd in his trappe ;' and he says, that the Guardian Angel well knows 
that he, the warden, could never withdraw the Soul from evil or induce it to 
follow his good counsel j and that even if he had, the Soul would not have 
thanked him for it ; he therefore does not know why the Angel should inter- 
fere, and begs he would let him alone to do with the Soul what he had a right 
to do, and could not be prevented from doing. The parley continues, until 
they agree to carry the Soul before Michael, the provost of heaven, and abide 
his award on Satan's claim. The Soul was then lifted between them both into 
the transparent air, wherein the spirits of the newly dead were passing thickly 
on every side, to and fro, as motes flitting in the sun-beam. They tarried not 
until they arrived at a marvellous place of bright fire, shining with a brilliant 
light, surrounded by a great multitude of Souls attending there for a like pur- 
pose. The Guardian Angel entered, leaving Satan without, and also the Soul, 
who could hear the voice of his warden speaking in his behalf, and acquainting 
Michael that he had brought from earth a pilgsim, who was w^ithout, and with 
him old Satan his accuser, abiding judgment. Then Satan began to cry out and 
said, * of right he is mine, and that I shall prove ; wherefore deliver him t© me 
by judgment, for I abide nought else.' This caused proclamation to be made 
by sound of trumpet in these words: — * All ye that are without, awaiting 
your judgment, present yourselves before the Provost to receive your doom ; 
but first ye that have longest waited, and especially those that have no 
great matter and are not much troubled ; for the plain and lig-ht causes shall 
first be determined, and then other matters that need greater tarrying.' — 
This proclamation greatly disturbed the souls without. Satan and his evil 
spirits were most especially angry, and holding a consultation, he spoke as 
follows : * It appears we are of little consequence, and hence our wicked 
neighbours do us injustice. These wardens hinder us from our purposes, and we 

2 N 



286 

are without favour. There is no caitiff pilgrim but hath had a warden assigned 
him from his birth, to attend him and defend him at all times from our hands^ 
and especially from the time that he washed in the * salt lye,' ordained by 
Grace de Dim, who hath ever been our enemy ; and then they are taken, as soon 
as these wardens come, before the provost, and have audience at their own 
pleasure; while we are kept here without, as mere ribalds. Let us cry out 
a rowe [haro], and out upon them all ! they have done us wrong ; and we will 
speak so loud that in spite of them they shall hear us.* Then Satan and his 
spirits cried out all at once, * Michael! Provost, Lieutenant, and Commissary jgif 
the high Judge ! do us right, without exception or favour of any party. You 
know very well that in every upright court the prosecutor is admitted to make 
his accusation and propose his petition ; but you first admit the defendant to 
make his excusation. This manner of judging is suspicious ; for were these 
pilgrims innocent, yet, if reason were to be heard, and right were to prevail, the 
accusers would have the first hearing to say what they would, and then the de- 
fendants after them, to excuse themselves if they could : we, then, being the 
prosecutors, hear us first, and then the defendants.'— After Satan's complaint, 
the Soul heard within the curtain, * a longe parlament ;' and, at the last, there 
was another proclamation ordered by sound of trumpet as follows: — * All ye 
that are accustomed to come to our judgments, to hear and to see, as assessors, 
that right be performed, come forth immediately and take your seats ; ye well 
knowing your own assigned places. Ye also that are without, waiting the sit- 
ting of the court, present yourselves forthwith to tlie judgment thereof, in order 
as ye shall be called ; so that no one hinder another, or interrupt another's dis- 
course. Ye pilgrims approach the entrance of this curtain, awaiting without ; 
and your wardens, because they are our equals, belonging to our company, are 
to appear, as of right they ought, within our presence.' After this proclamation 
was observed, the Guardian Angel said—* Provost Michael! I here present to 
you this pilgrim, committed to my care in the world below: he has kept his faith 
to the last, and ought to be received into the heavenly Jerusalem, whereto 
his body hath long been travelling.' — Satau answered — * Michael! attend to ray 
word and I shall tell you another tale.' He urged that the Soul, after baptism, 
on arriving at mature age, defiled himself by sin. * It is written,' says Satan, *in 
the midst of his visage, read it who that will. There ye may see the shame and 
confusion which he hath wilfully wrapped himself in. By that I ask judgment 
that he be delivered to me.' Satan then enumerated the Soul's various sins, and 
asked ' who is it that ought, or may, or dare excuse him? I ask no other wit- 
ness but he that hath always been next of his counsel, his own Conscience, who 
dare not, nor will not lie in the matter : he is mine by right ; in heaven hath he 
nought ; let him therefore be delivered to me that I may go hence forthwith.' 
The Soul then relates, that in great dread and heaviness he knew not what to 
do or say, but when he saw his warden remain silent, he was in still greater 
dread. He said to me then, says the Soul, that * I must answer for myself to the 
accusation, and if I could defend myself I had the right tc do so, but if I could 
not or durst not in my own person, I must get some advocate to speak for me. 
But I well knew that advocates are not willing to plead any man's causa without 
it is a just one, or else that they hope to he rewarded after; and for so poor a 
man as I, there would no advocate plead without being paid before hand: for 



287 

pleaders in worldly courts have tongues like to the languet of the balance that 
draweth him away to the party that will give the best reward.' Nevertheless 
the advocates of heaven were of another kind, and ready to speak for the Soul; 
yet he still thought, that as he * was poor, and had nothing to give an advocate, 
and had no acquaintance with any saint,' he had better defend himself. He com- 
mences, however, by complaining, that he who is now his accuser was his se* 
ducer. He suggests that if he had been a sinner he ought not to have been 
suffered to go on so long. He affirms that he has no wisdom to demean him- 
self, and appeals to Charity, to Jesus, to the Virgin Mary, and to all the saints 
against his enemy, who, while he was in the flesh, by deceits and frauds, 
drove him to misdoing. Then, Justice spoke to the following effect: — 
* Sir Judge ! Repentance and petition is now useless ; nor can any advocate 
plead here who is not from the earth below, and it is against the law and 
custom of the court to attempt to excite and stir favor to himself. The soul 
had leisure in his lifetime to have prayed, and obtained procurators to promote 
his interests, but now it is too late.' Proclamation was accordingly made 
thus: — < The manner and usage of the Court is, that the pilgrim answer for 
himself personally, and plainly give account of his journey, and other plea nor 
process ought not to be heard nor admitted in this place.' The soul thus pressed, 
endeavoured to defend himself in the best manner he could. He began by 
tendering exceptions to Satan's proceedings: — that he ought not to answer the 
action brought against him by Satan and others, because they were infamous 
and condemned, and therefore driven from heaven j because Satan had always 
been the defendant's personal enemy, by pursuing, lying in wait, forestalling, 
spreading nets, arraying traps and setting other engines, to take and deceive him. 
Further, he alleged that Satan was not a proper person to prosecute the action, 
he being eternally condemned, and therefore could not ansv/er to the soul for 
the wrong done him, if the action were disallowed ; and, lastly, he alleged that 
it was well known that Satan was then, and ever had been, an open liar, the 
author of all falsehood, and untruth, and always ready to do and say the 
worst. To these exceptions Satan answered to nearly as follows : that the 
manner and custom of heaven is not the same as upon earth -, that he had 
seizin of accusement in as much as the Court had accepted his accusation : 
that when he was kept standing without, the soul did not then, except : that 
although, true it was, that if the action were avoided, that he personally could 
not be heard by reason of his insufficiency, yet there was one who could in no 
way be excepted to, and who knew the soul's inmost thoughts. Where 
upon Satan called Synderesys to testify the truth. The soul's description of this 
witness is very curious : — ' Then came forth by me an old one, that long time had 
hid himself nigh me, which, before that time, I had not perceived. He was 
wonderfully hideous, and of cruel countenance ; and he began to grin, and 
showed me his jaws and his gums, for teeth he had none, they being all broken 
and worn away. And when I espied him, I was full sore abashed. He was 
dreadfully loathsome and foul to look upon : he had no body, but, under his 
head, he had only a tail, which seemed the tail of a worm, of exceeding length 
and greatness. To me this loathsome beast began to speak, and said :— •' / am 
come to accuse thee. / am not accustomed to make fables, nor tell no 
gabbings, but I am believed of truth. I know well thy thoughts, thy deeds, and 



288 

thy words. Thou caust make no exception to me; and I shall be believed in 
this Court better than thee. Often have I warned thee in private^ for thy own 
sake and advantage, of thy misconduct, both in thoughts and words ; and so 
often bitten thee that all my teeth are wasted and broken; and yet thou hast 
been so obstinate, that no sore biting could turn thee from thy evil ways. And 
further, I counselled thee to go to the priest and shew him the hideousness of 
thy soul, which by keeping private is blemished and deformed, although that 
priest, upon thy disclosure, would have absolved thee.' The Soul inquiring of 
the witness who he is, receives for answer ; < I am the Worm of Conscience ; for, 
]i|(e a worm, I am wont to bite and to wound them that wrong themselves.' — 
This specimen, modernized in orthography and style, shews that the curious 
piece from whence it is extracted, is not only pregnant with allegory, but 
is a theological parody upon proceedings in courts of law. It issued, as is else- 
where stated, from the press of Caxton> the first English printer, in the reign 
of Edward the Fifth. 

One remark, in conclusion, concerning Mysteries. It seems pretty well agreed 
that the performance of these religious plays ceased about 1578. Subjoined is 
the title of a play, printed at London in that year, with the names of the cha- 
riveters. ^ A moral andpitieful Comedie, intituled All for Money ; plainly re- 
presenting the maners of men and fashion of the world now adayes. Compiled 
by T. LuPTON. The names of them that plaie this Comoedie. TheologiCc 
Science. Arte. Money. Adulation. Mischievous helpe. Pleasure. Prest 
for pleasure. Sinne. Swifte to sinne. Damnation. Satant Pryde. Glut- 
tonie. Learning with Money. Learning without money. Money without 
Learning. All for Money. Neyther money nor learning. Moneyles and 
friendles. Gregorie graceles. Moneyles. William with the two wives. Ny- 
chol. S. Laurence. Mother Crooke. Judas. Dives. Godly admonition. 
Vertue. Humilitie. Charitie.' Lupton's amalgam of mystery with morality was 
an accommodation to the general liking for the old performances. From about 
that period it is easy to trace the rapid improvement of popular taste, in the 
plays of successive authors, until Sbakspeare, exploring the sources of human 
action, exemplified all possible varieties of character, and tai^ht the philosophy 
pf social life ill his imperishable dramas^ 



GLOSSARY. 



A. 

AfiYLf enable. 

A gens, to meet, 

Ageyn, against, 

Algatesy alwaySf nevertheless. 

Alosed, reputedf charged with. 

Alwey, always. 

Amys, illf badly, amiss, 

Antecer, predecessor, forerunner, 

Apayred, injured. 

Arer, raise. 

Aroint, arongt, p. 138. 

At, off from. 

Auerte, avert, 

Auter, awter, edtar, 

Avyse, advice, counsel. 

Barrany, barren, 

Barynes, barrenness^ 

Beforn, btfore. 

Berays, rays. 

Bfen, be, entered. 

Benyson, blessing, 

Ber*, bear. 

Bestad, ^aA:en place, happened. 

Bestys, beasts. 

Beteche, recommend, require, 

Beth, be, 

Bewte, beauty. 

Blake, black, 

Blawdyr, scandal, disturbance. 

Bier', darken, dim, 

Blythe, blithe, merry, 

Bot, but. 

Bote, bit. 

Bow, bough, bush. 

Bower, a chamber, dwelling'place. 

Brake, * bows of brake^ p. V25— steel ; 
at least, I have so presumed to snp- 
ply the blank left by Dr. Whitaker. 
Authorities cited by Arch. Nares, in 
his Glossary, published since p. J 25 
Mvas printed, seem to corroborate my 
notion. 



Bren, bum, 

Brenning, burning, 

Brydde, bird, 

Bryth, bright, 

Busshop, bishop, 

Boustotis, bustouse, sturdy, cumbrous, 

Buxhum, obedient, gentle. 

Byddyng, order, command, 

Byth, but, 

C. 

Catel, goods, chattels. 

Cent, sent. 

Chawmer, chamber, dwelling. 

Cher, cheer, comfort; also dear. 

Ches, chose, 

Cheverell, kid leather, 

Clene, chaste, pure, 

Clennes, chastity, purity, 

Clepid, clepyd, called, 

Clowte, beat, 

CokvfoW, cuckold, 

Comfyte, comyfte, discomfited. 

Comyn, come. 

Conceyte, witty device, 

Conclusyon, determination, judgment. 

Conserve, preserve. 

Contekour, a disturber, maker of strife. 

Cou'ed, covered, 

Cowp, cup, 

Credyl, cradle, 

Cropyn, crept. 

C'ste, Christ, 

Cartana, the blunt sword of mercy, used 

at coronations of kings of England. 
Cus, kiss, 

D. 

Dery's leder, deer's leather, buckskin, 

Devyr, endeavour, duty. 

Devyse, grant, 

Deye, die, 

Deyte, deity. 

Dome, doom, judgment. 

Dowter, daughter. 

Drynge, drink. 



590 



GLOSSARY. 



Dwer, door. 

DylexcoD, dilectian, loving hindness. 

Dyser's, desires. 

Dysspice, despise. • 

Dyu's, diverse. 

E. 

Egee, egg. 

Estre, Estres, Easter. 

Estryge, ostrich. 

Esyd, eased. 

Ethe, easy, willing. 

Every'ch, each oncj every. 

Eu'y, euyr, every. 

Famy't, famished. 

Far', fare. 

Faryn, fearing. 

Feetly, dexterously. 

Felacha'pp, company, society. 

Fehs, fellows, companions. 

Fenestra II is, in imitation of windows, 

Ffeudys,fiends. 

Fer, /ar. 

Ferd, fared. 

Fer', fere, fellow, mate. 

Fet, fetched. 

Fonde, try, endeavour. 

For, because. 

Ffortene, fourteen. 

Ffyff, five. 

Fy\t, filled. 



G. 



Gaff, gave. 

Giff, if. 

Gites, gowns. 

Gle, mirth, music. 

Gov, go, proceed. 

Goth, go. 

Gramercy, (grand mercie, fr.) great 

thanks. 
Grame, anger, affliction, 
Gramyd, angered, afflicted. 
Grees, Greeys, steps, stairs. 
Grotte, a groat. 
Gynne, a snare, a trap. 
GyWjgive; also, if. 
Gynnynge, beginning, 

H. 

Hane, have. 

Haras, * hous of haras,' p. 68, a resting- 
place for the fatigued? 

Harrowing of Hell ; the release of the 
souls and stripping of Hell by Christ, 

Haryed, ransacked, pillaged, plundered, 

Hasardour, a gamester. 

He, ye, you. 

He', hem, them. 

Hedfhead; also heed. 



Hefne, heaven. 
Hele, health. 
Hendyng, end. 
Kent, held, hold. 
Her', hear, and here ; also there» 
Herand, errand. 
Hes, has, 

Hese, his ; also these. 
Hesely, easily. 
Hey, high, 
Hir, hire. 
Ho, who. 
Ho 80, whoso. 
Hodys, hoods. 
Hondis, hands, 
Howe, ought, 
Howyth, ought. 
Hy, hyg, high, 
Hyge, hie, make haste, 
Hygth, named, 
Hy'pne, hymn. 

Hytte the pynne, p. 63, * knocked the 
right nail on the head,' guessed aright. 



1, 



Insampull, example. 

J, 

Jentyl, gentle. 



Kende, known. 

Knowlyche, acknowledge, 

Knyll, knell, 

Kusse, kiss, 

Ky, (kyke, to look). 



Lave, water. 

Lawhg, laugh. 

Lemenyd, limned^ emblazoned. 

Leme, to teach, 

Lese, lose, damage. 

Lett, hinder. 

Lette, p. 42, is probably a clerical error 

for " telle,'" tell. 
Levyn, live, reside. 
Levyr, rather. 
Lewd, illiterate, ignorant. 
'Logge, p. 6B, lodge. 
Loveday, a day of reconciliation. 
Ijow t\i, bend, stoop. 
Lyberary, library, 
Lyflode, livelihood. 
Lyste, list, desire, choice. 
Lythly, gently, easily. 

M. 

Maculation, spot, stain of 5t«. 



GLOSSARY. 



291 



Make, mute^ consort. 
Matiice, womb. 

Ma'y, inaydy', maiden; also a bachelor. 
Maylys, mail armour. 
Mayst', master. 
Mede, meedj reward. 
Meky!,wwc/t. 
Melle, meddle^ mix. 
Mende, tnind. 
Mene, mine. 

Metelys, p. 228, appropriately in charac- 
ter, meetly. 
Mevyd, moved, stirred up. 
Modyr, mother. 
Moty, may, might. 
Mow, may, must; also mouth. . 
Muse, think, imagine. 
Mys, a mys, amiss. 
Mystyz, mysterious, unknoum. 
Myth, might, lower. 

N. 

Natt, not. 
Ne, neither. 
Ner, near, nigh. 
Noke, nook, corner. 
Non, known. 
Nother, neither. 
Nyn, nor. 

O. 

Oblociicyon, obloquy t false report. 

On, one. 

Onys, once. 

Ower, over. 

Owth, aught, any thing* 

Owughte, out, outright. 

Owyght, ought. 



Pace, pass, hasten aWay. 

Pantofles, slippei^s ; at p. 149, high 
heeled shoes. 

Pard6, par Dieu, a petty oath. 

Pardoner, a licensed seller of papal par- 
dons. 

Parfyte, perfect, 

Parlemeut, a conference^ a council. 

Passage, pregnancy. 

Pateyn, patten, a dish for the chalice, in 
Church worship. 

Pawsac'on, pause, delay. 

Pes, peace. 

Pety enime, a mean adversary^ a slan-- 
derer. 

Pleand, playing. 

Pleynge, recreating. 

Pleyny', complain. 

Powste, power. 



Praty, pretty, 
Prest, priest. 
Prevydens, providence. 
Pr'ogatytf, prerogative. 
Prow, honour, profit, 
"P'stis, priests. 

P'vyde, p. 40, a contraction for pur- 
veyed? 
P'uyly, privily. 
Pylg'njys, pilgrims. 
Pyn, pain. 
Pypys, pipes. 



Qwedyr, quiver, quake. 
Qwelle, to destroy, to kill. 
Qwen, queen, 
Qwer, quire, choir, 
Qwyk, quick, alive. 

R. 

Rage, wanton toying. 

Rape, to be in haste. 

Reft, bertftj taken away, 

Ren, run. 

Repreve, reproof. 

Reprevyd, reproved. 

Rewlyd, ruled. 

Roddys, rods. 

Rowte, a company. 

Ryff, rife, common, openly. 

Ryghtwysnes^ rytewisues, righteous-, 

ness. 
Ryth, right. 



S. 

Sapyens, wisdom. 

Sawe, saw, an old saying. 

Sawys, sayings. 

Sawter, psalter. 

Searfawst, o scaffold. 

Schadu, shadow. 

Sclmpe, p. 65, escape. 

Schapp, shape, 

Schent, shent, hurt, spoiled, ruined. 

Schryve, shrive, to confess. 

Schul, shall. 

Sclepyr, slippery. 

Se, see, a province, a dominion. 

Sees, cease. 

Sefne, seven, 

Sekernedys, p. 67, look out for workj 

seek support, 
Sekyr, p, 47, as usual. 
Sekyrly, p, 68, to seek them? 
Sen, see. 
Ser', sir. 
Serys, 5tr5. 
Ses, cease. 



292 



GLOSSARY. 



Sesyd, seised^ possessed of. 

Sexte, sixth. 

Seyd, seed ; also said. 

Seyden, had said. 

Seyn, seen, said, taying. 

Seyng, saying. 

Shrewe, to curse. 

Shnllen, should, 

Shyrle, churl. 

Slynge, .^ling, to hurl or throw. 

Sofreynes, sovereynes, sovereigns. 

Somrior, a summoner^ an apparitor, 

Soraowne, summon. 

Sonde, message, messenger. 

SongeD, sung. 

Sor'we, sorrow. 

Sothfastnes, truth, 

Sothly, truly. 

Sowlen, souls. AUe Sonlen day, All 
Souls day. 

Sowude, message. 
Sowte, sought. 

Spowsage, espousals. 

Spyllyth, spoileth. 
Starkly, strongly. 
Stere, stir, to move. 
Stond, stoode, stand. 
Stytelerys, p. 227 ? 
Suster, siMer. 
Sustren, sisters, 
Swinke, labour, 
Swyche, such. 
Sybbe, a relative by blood. 
Syerge, a wax-taper. 
Sygt, sight, presence. , 
Syse, assize, judgment, 
Syth, p. 46, time. 
Sy the, p. 46, afterwards, 
Syttyht, sitteth. 

T. 

Take, p. 34, show. 

Tast, p. 70, feel. 

Tende, tend, wait on. 

Tent, attention, heed, warning. 

Thonking, thanking. 

Thor', p. 41, thorough; also therefore. 

Thor'we, thourough. 

Thorwe outb, throughout, 

Thretty, thirty. 

Thrydde, third. 

Thryste, thirst. 

Thwyn, be thywn, between. 

Thynkyht, think, thought it. 

To, too. 



To byge, too high. 

Tolle, tell. 

Ton, toes. 

Tow'r, p. 14, heavenly rest. 

Trayne, connection, 

Tribus, tribe. 

Tron, throne. 

Tiowe, think. 

Trowth, truth, faith. 

Tweyn, two. 

Tweyner's metyng, the meeting oftwa, 

V. 

Ve'geabyl, revengeful. 
Verament, verily, truly. 

V. 

Unknowlage, ignorance. 

W. 

Wede, apparel. 

Wend, go. 

Wene, think, guess, conjecture, 

Werd, werde, world, 

Werkys, works. 

Wers, worse. 

Wete, know, understand, 

Weten, understood, 

Whyte, white. 

Wis, wys, know, imagine. 

Wole, will. 

Wonyng, dwelling-place, 

Wrank, p. 63, wrong ? 

Wrecchis, wretches. 

Wurchepp, worship. 

Wurdys, words. 



Xzl, shall. 



X. 



Y. 



Y, sometimes stands for ih. 

Yardys, rods, wands. 

Yer, years. 

Yerd, yard, a rod, a wand. 

Yettis, gates. 

Yne, eyes. 

Yturne, changed, altered. 



Zynge, young. 



END OF THE GLOSSARY. 



INDEX 



Abraham and Isaac, a mystery, acted 
at Newcastle, 213. 

Actium, anniversary of the battle of, 
turned into the feast of St. Peter 
ad vincula, 160. 

Acts of the Apostles, a grand mystery, 
performed at Paris, 175. procla- 
mation for its performance, 177. 

. prohibited by the parliament, 179. 

Adam and Eve naked on the stage, 
220. 

Address to the audience at the per- 
formance of a mystery, 57. 

Albans, St., the Devil seen there, 89. 
copes, borrowed from the Abbey for 
the miracle play at Dunstaple, 200. 

All for Money, a play, 288. 

Andrews, St., Holborn, Boy Bishop, 
198. 

Ann and Joachim, prints of their apo- 
cryphal story, 107. 112. devotional 
hononrs to Ann, 113. their wedding- 
ring, 116. 

Annunciation and Birth of Christ, a 
mystery, acted at Civita Vecchia, 
169. at Munich, 191. 

Anthony, St., of Padua, for miracles 
performed, receives the rank of cap- 
tain in a Portuguese regiment, 182. 

Apocryphal New Testament subjects, 
engravings of, 107. 

Apollinarius, Bishop of Laodicea, and 
his father, turn subjects of the Old 
and New Testament into plays, 151. 

Applause anciently expressed in 
churches, 153. 

Aroint, arongt, arougt, 138. authori- 
ties concerning, 146. 

Arsenic in the Chester giants, 269. 

Ass, Feast of the, 1 60. the ass formerly 
in Palm Sunday processions, 162. 
vulgar notion concerning his marks, 
ibid, hymn in his praise, 163. 

Autolycus's ballad, 106. 
B. 

Bacchanalian and Satnrnaliau sports, 
succeeded by religious shows, 157. 
159. 

Bale, Bishop, notice of hira and of 
mysteries he wrote, 226. 

Baldini and Boticelli, engrave a cu- 
rious print of hell, 122, 

Bamberg, remarkable performance of 
a mystery there, 185. and a reli- 
gious procession of the Passion, 187. 

Baptizing of Christ, a mystery, acted 
at Newcastle, 213. 



Bartholomew Fair, Creation of the 
World, Noah's Flood, and Dives and 
Lazarus performed there, 230. 

Bassingborne, miracle play, 215. 

Bedford Missal, 112. 165. 

Beehive of the Romish Church, 220. 
222. 283. 

B^grande, Mad., plays in the mystery 
of Susannah, at Paris, 189. 

Bellarmine, Card., the division of hell 
into compartments erroneously at- 
tributed to him, 122. 

Bells spiritualized, 284. 

Benedictine convent at Clerkenwell, 
207. 

Bernard's St., Querela, 141. 

Bibles, their scarcity formerly, 202. 

Birth of Christ, &c. acted in a puppet- 
show at Dieppe, 189. 

of Mary, a Coventry mystery, 

described, 13. 

Boar's-head Carols, 100. 102. 

Bodleian Library, MSS. of Cornish 
mysteries of the Deluge, Passion, 
and Resurrection there, 217. 

Boeck van Jhesus Leven, contains 
wood-cuts from apocrvphal story, 
112. 122. 

Botolph, St., without Aidersgate, 
cbartulary of the brethren of the 
Holy Trinity described, 73. 

Boy Bishop, 166. the ceremony de- 
scribed, 193—200. 

Branch in churches, 83. 

Brussels, superstition there concern- 
ing dogs, 172. 

Burial of Christ, and the Virgin, mys- 
teries acted at Newcastle, 214. 

Buttock-bone of Pentecost, 88. 
C. 

Cambray Boy Bishop, 197. 

Cambridge University, its ignorance of 
Greek in the time of Erasmus, 157. 

Candles, Thirteen, allegorical of Christ 
and the Apostles, 78. a triangular 
one allegorical of the Trinity, ibid, 
candles in Catholic worship borrow- 
ed from the ancient Romans, 84. 

Canterbury Cathedral,the Descent into 
Hell in one the windows, and the 
Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, 
formerly chained to the pillars, 123. 

Carols, Christmas, notices concerning, 
90. lists of those now printed, 
97. specimens of carol-cuts, 100. 

Castle of Good Preservance, a mora- 
lity 227. 

Caxton'sPilgremage of the Slower 122. 
285. 



2 o 



294 



JIN D EX, 



Caxton,tlie monks alarmed at his press, 
228. 

Chaplains compose mysteries, 215. 

Ciiester mysteries in the British Mu- 
seum, 200. giants, 268. 

Chevalier qui donne sa femme au Dia- 
ble, a mystery, 174. 

Children, custom to whip them on In- 
nocents' day, 195. 

Christ allegorised by candles, 83. 
prints of his apocryphal story, 108, 
his blood at his crucifixion said to 
have descended into hell, 123. his 
approbation affixed to a book, 282. 

Christmas, Gerard, improves the figures 
in the pageants, 267. 

City accounts, entry of the sum paid to 
the carver of the giants, 267. 

companies' barges first built, 249. 

election wit on the present Lon- 
don giants, 271. 

poet, 262. 

Clara, St., an allegory of the Trinity, 
found in her gall, 68. 

Clergy, their ignorance in former times, 

156. they destroy ancient MSS., 

157. introduce ludicrous shows into 
the church, ibid, decline in power 
in England, 204'. 

Clerk at the Eton Montem, strangely 
used by the chaplain after prayers, 
199. 

CJerkenwell, mysteries perform'd there, 
206.extracts from the rate books,207. 

Church service in honour of the ass,l62 

Churchwardens hire players to perform 
the mysteries, 218. 

Colet, Dean, orders the children of St. 
Paul's school to attend the Boy Bi- 
shop's sermon, 198. 

Constance, council of, mysteries acted 
there, 170. 

Conscience, the Worm of, described, 
287. 

Cornish Miracle Plays, 217. 

Coventry mysteries in the Biitish Mu- 
seum, 200. mystery of the Shere- 
men and Tailors, 218. 

pageants there, 235. the lay- 
men's parliament held there, 203. 

Council of the Trinity and tlie Incar- 
nation, a Coventry mystery, de- 
scribed, 38. illustratedfromaMS.72. 

Creation of the World, a mystery, acted 
at Civita Vecchia, 169. at Lisbon, 
181. at Bamberg, 185. at Clerken- 
well, 206. in a puppet-show at 
Bath, 229. at Bartholomew fair, 
230. 

. . to the resurrection, 

a series of mysteries acted at York 
on Corpus Christi day, 213. 



Creeping to the Cross, 221. 
Croydon, the Vicar of, preaches against 

printing, 228. 
Crnikshank, Mr. George, his talents as 

an artist, 276. 

D. 

Damned, whether all or only some 
were released on Christ's Descent 
into hell, 131. 

Soul, a mystery, at Turin, 183. 

Daniel in the Lions Den, a mystery, 
acted at Paris, in 1817, 188. 

David, a sacred comedy, performed at 
Berlin in 1804, 192. at Vienna, in 
1810, ibid, and again, during the 
congress there, in 1815, ibid. 

Death, Hell, and the Devil, in a 
pageant at Haerlem, 233. 

Death's Triumph, a pageant at Flo- 
rence, 280. 

December Liberties, 159. 

Deliverance of Israel, a mystery, acted 
at Newcastle, 214. 

Descent into Hell, 120. prints illus- 
trating, 121. Hearne's print of it, 
138. mysteries on this subject acted 
at Coventry and Chester, 203. at 
Winchester, 215. 

of the Holy Ghost represent- 
ed on Whit Sunday, 221. 

Devil, his strange appearance at St. 
Albans, 89. 

^^ left alone i'n hell at tlie Resur- 
rection, 131. 

a tail-piece, 142. 

dressed in a mystery in scarlet 

stockings, and a gold-laced hat, 181. 

Dialogue betwixt the body and soul of 
a damned man, 141. 

Dieppe, mysteries there, with puppets, 
190. 

Dives and Lazarus, Job's Suflferings, 
Susannah, &c., mysteries acted by 
RadcHife's scholars, 205. Dives and 
Lazarus in a puppet-show at Bartho- 
lomew fair, 230. 

Dogs of Brussels receive consecrated 
bread annually, 172. 

Don Juan, founded on Punch in the 
puppet-show? 230. 

Douce, Mr., on the Feast of Fools, 
Feast of the Ass, and other burlesque 
ceremonies, 165. his girdle of an 
abbot of fools, 166. 

Dragon's tail allegorical of the king- 
dom of Satan, 134. 

Drama, the ancient, superseded by the 
religious plays of Gregory Nazian- 
zen, &c., 151. 

Dramatic exhibitions denounced by 
the Fathers, 148. 



INDEX. 



295 



ridiculous obaer- 
Fatliers of the 



Danstan, St., and the Devi], in a pa- 
geant on Lord Mayors' Day, 259. 

Dunstaple, a mystery acted there by 
the scholars of the abbey, 199. 

Durharrij creeping to the cross in the 
cathedral, 222, 

E. 

Edinburgh, Pageants there, 237. 

Edward I., vespers said before him by 
a Boy Bishop, 198. 201. 

VI. author of the Whore of Ba- 
bylon, a comedy, 225. 

Eleusinian Mysteries scenic, 152. 

Elizabeth, Queen, her statue at Tem- 
ple Bar, 245. 

Ely House, a mystery performed there, 
216.231. 

Establishment of the Church, 154. 

Eton Boy Bisliop, 199. Montem, ibid. 
Latin plays, 205. 

Every Man, a moralitj', 228. 
F, 

Falcon on the Hoop Brewery, Alders- 

gate-street, 80. 
Feast of the Ass, how observed, 159. 

at Rouen, 161. at Beauvais, ibid, 
— — of Fools, its 

vauces, 159. 
Flagellation of the 

Oratory, 279. 
Fools' Morris Dance, 270. 
Franciscan Friars at Coventry, 205, 
G. 

Gallantee show of theProdigal Son,231. 

Geoffrey the Norman composes a mi- 
racle play, 199. 

George, St., tlie Holy Martyr, a mira- 
cle play acted at Bassiiigborne, 215. 

Giants in Guildhall described and their 
origin authenticated, 262—276. 

in the setting of the London 

watch on St. John's eve, 269. and 
at Chester, 268. 

Gilbert, Mr. Davies, notice of his work 
on Christmas Carols, 106. 

Glory of the Blessed, acted at Paris, 
170. 

Gogmagog and Corinaeus, two giants 
in a Pageant at Temple Bar, 241. 
also at London Bridge, 268. his- 
tory of the personages they repre- 
sented, 272—4. 

Goldsmith's Company, th^ir stupendous 
pageant on Lord Mayors' Day, 258. 

Grandmother ©f God, a term applied 
to Ann, 114. 

Granger, on mental equality, 101. 

Greek denounced as the mother of he- 
resies, 156, 

poetry destroyed by the clergy, 

168* 



Greek studies change the character of 
popular amusements, 241. 

Gregorie on the Boy Bishop, 195. 

Gregory the Great's instructions to 
Austin, concerning pagan temples in 
England, 160. 

Nazianzen, Patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, composes plays from 
Scripture, 151. 153. 

Thaumaturgus, institutes fes* 

tivals to saints on heathen anniversa- 
ries, 159. 

Grotesque carvings in churches, 166. 

Guildhall, shops within it formerly, 267. 
Chapel, parish clerks' feasts 



there> 208. 



H. 



Haerleraj a splendid pageant there, 
141. characters in it, 232. 

Haro, Harro, Harrow, &c. 147. 

Harrowing of Hell, 1S9. 

Hatto, Bishop of Mentz, his story re- 
presented in a pageant, 233. 

Hatton on the giauts of Guildhall, 263. 
265. 

Hawkwood, Sit John, represented in 
a Lord Mayor's J*ageant, 253. 

Hearne's print of the Descent into 
PJell considered, 238. 

Heathcote, Sir Gilbert, Lord Mayor, 
the last who rode on horsebacfc ia 
the show, 261. 

Heaven, in a pageant, 238. 

Hell, how divided, 122. its dimensions, 
281. 

■ Mouth, in prints, in the great win- 
dow of York Cathedral, and on the 
west front of Lincoln Cathedral, 173. 
on the stage, ibid, 217. 

Torments, a pageant on the Arno, 

281. 

Henley, Orator, lectures on Lord 
Mayor's Show and the Giants, 271. 

Henry VIL entertained on twelfth 
night with a carol, 100, the Descent 
into Hell performed before him, 215. 

VIII. abrogates the Boy Bi- 
shop, 198, 199. entertained by Ro- 
bin Hood, in a May game at Shooter's 
Hill, 223. forbids the acting of 
plays in churches, 229. 

Heresy and Heretics, 153. 

Herod's murder of the Innocents, com- 
memorated, 195. 

Heton, near Newcastle on Tync, ves- 
pers said thereby a Boy Bishop, be- 
fore Edward I., 198. 

Hey wood, John, his Four P's, 87. 139. 

Holly and the Ivy,a Christmas carol,94. 

Howleglas, his adventure with a priest 
at the sepulchre on Easter day, 223; 

Hubert, St., patron of dogs, 17^. 



296 



INDEX. 



I. H. S. origin of the letters, 282. 
J. 

Jack Snacker of Wytney, 225. 

James II., fireworks with statues of 
the Londou giants exhibited before 
him, 264. 

Jaw-bone of All-hallows, 87. 

Jerome whipped by angels, 150. 

Jesse, the, in pageants, &c. 83. 

Jesus the true Messiah, a religious 
play, 226. 

Joachim,, see Ann and Joachim. 

Johnson, Dr., on aroint in Shakspeare, - 
138. 

Joseph's Jealousy, a Coventry mystery, 
described, 46. set forth in the Co- 
ventry mystery of the Sheremen and 
Taylors, 218. Christmas carol on, 
90. prints of his apocryphal history, 
108. his miraculous wedding-ring, 
116. 

Jude's Epistle,considered by Michaelis, 
137. 

Julian, the emperor, prohibits liberal 
instruction to the Christians, 105. 
remarkable consequences, 151. 

K. 

Kentigern, St., works a miracle, 84. 
Knight, Mr. R. P., describes a form of 
the Trinity at Hierapolis, 88. 

L. 

Lady of Carmel's confraternity, 282. 

Latimer, Bishop, his complaint of Ro- 
bin Hood's day, 223. 

Lea^enhall, machinery for the pageants 
kept there, 234. 

Leverge, Jos., gailantee show-man of 
the Prodigal son, 231. 

Litany for tlie reconversion of England 
to the Catholic faith, 154. 

— ==^ — a Uiock one, sung to amuse the 
corporation and their guests on Lord 
Mayor's day, 256. 

Lord Mayor's show described,246— 260. 

Lucifer, with a triune head, 86. 

Lydgate, author of ' pageants', 214. 

M. 

Macarius, St., and his flea, 280. 

Mai recovers lost writings of Cicero, 

157. 
Marriott, Mr., purveyor of the armour 

used on Lord Mayor's day, 261. 
Mary I. revives the Boy Bishop, 198. 

he sings before her, ibid. 

-y St." at Hill, Hoy Bishop, 198. 

• — -, St. Offery (Overy), Boy Bishop, 

198. 



Mary, Virgin, her Education in the 
Temple and being served by Angels, 
a Coventry mystery, described, 20. 
prints of her apocryphal story, 108, 
&c. devotions to her honour and to 
her miraculous wedding-ring, 116. 

Mass, the, allegorizes Christ's Descent 
into Hell, 132. 

Massacre of the Innocents, a mystery, 
acted by the English fathers at the 
Council of Constance, 170. 

May games, 223. 

Merchant Taylors, a song to their ho- 
nor in a pageant, 255. 

Michael's contention with the Devil, 
for the body of Moses, 134. 

Miracle Plays at Cornwall, 217. 

Miraculous Birth, and the midwives, a 
Coventry mystery, described, 67. 

Espousal of Mary and 

Joseph, a Coventry mystery, de- 
scribed, 27. 

■ Host tortured by a Jew at 

Paris, 171. mysteries founded on 
it, 172. 

Miserable Scald Masons, 242. 

Montem at Eton, 199. 

Moore,Mr., on mysteries at Paris, 188. 

MoraUties defined, 227. 

Morris-Dance,221. 269. a painting of 
one described, 270. 

Mysteries, their origin on the Conti- 
nent, 168. in England, 200. when 
firstperformed in the English tongue? 
201. defined, 227. 
N. 

Nebuchadnezzar's Furnace, acted at 
the Feast of the Ass at Rouen, 161. 

Neuf Chatel, lord of, nearly dead on 
the cross while performing in a mys- 
tery, 173. 

New Custom, a morality, 226. 

German Ass of Balaam, a comedy, 

226. 

Testament, unknown to many of 

the ancient clergy, 156. Erasmus's 
forbidden at Cambridge, 157. per- 
sons burnt who possessed Wicliffe's, 
204. 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne mysteries, 213. 

Nicey, Jean de, hung in a mystery till 
almost lifeless, 173. 

Nicholas, St., his miraculous restoration 
of murdered children, 193. patron of 
scholars and parish clerks, 194, 208. 

Nicodennis, gospel of, formerly exposed 
to be read in Canterbury cathedral, 
123. 

Noah's flood, a mystery on this subject, 
at Newcastle, 147. at Lisbon, 181. 
at Chester, 202. at Newcastle-on- 
Tyne, 214, in a puppet-show at 



INDEX. 



297 



Bath, 229. at Bartholomew fair, 
230. in a gallantee show, 231. 

Norman^ Sir John, Lord Mayor, the 
first who went to Westminster by 
water, 249. 

Northumberland, Earl of, his children 
of the chapel perform mysteries com- 
posed by his chaplains, 215. 

Notbornne mayde by John Skot, 115. 

O. 

Olave, St., the Life of, a mystery acted 

at St. Olave's church, Silver street, 

215. 
Olaves, St. Nicholas, in Bread street, 

Boy Bishop, 198. 
Old and New Testament, a series of 

mysteries acted at Paris, 171. 
Oratorios, their origin, 192. 279. 
Oseney, Abbey of, old custom there, 

195. 
Owlglass, see Howleglas. 
Ox and Ass, why introduced in prints 

of the nativity, 278. 
Oxford University, in 1357, no Bible 

there, 202. 

P. 

Pageants described, 232—245. 

Parish Clerks of London perform mys- 
teries, 206. their origin, &c. 208.' 

Parishes customarily had Boy Bishops, 
197. 

Passage of the Red Sea, a mystery, 
acted lately at Paris, 188. 

Passion of Christ, a mystery on this 
subject, acted at Friuli, 169. at 
Civita Vecchia, ibid, at St. Maur, 
170. at Notre Dame, ibid, at Poic- 
tiers, 171. at Veximiel, 172. again 
there, 173, before the Lord Mayor, 
at the Grey-friars, London, 215. 

St. George, a mystery, act- 
ed at Paris, 171. 

Paul, St., quotes the poets, 151. 

's St., Cathedral, remarkable an- 
nual procession to the altar, 160. 
descent of the Holy Ghost, perform- 
ed at Whitsuntide, 225. descent of 
a rope dancer from the battlements, 
239. a Dutchman stands on the 
weathercock, 240. service there an- 
ciently attended by the Lord Mayor 
after dinner on Lord Mayor's day, 
249. 

-^ School, the scholars ordered 

to hear the Boy Bishop's sermon,198. 
they perform mysteries, 206. are 
favourite comedians, ibid, petition 
Richard II. in behalf of their play- 
ing, ibid. 

Peko-tea, Christmas carol on, 96. 

Peirs Ploughman's Adsion, 124. 



Peirs Ploughman's creed, 127, 214. 
Pilgremage of the sowie, a French MS. 

of it, 122. specimen of the story, 285. 
Pilgrims from Jerusalem played mys- 
teries in the streets, 168. 
Porter of Hell, his office and antiquity, 

139. 
Press, the, its eflFects in promoting the 

Reformation, 229. preached against, 

228. 
Proclamation for performing the Acts 

of the Apostles at Paris, 178. 
Prong, held by the porter of Hell, in 

Hearne's print, 140, 232. 
Prynne, William, Defence of Stage 

Plays, a rare tract, with his name, 

216. his Vindication, 217. 
Psalms sung to song times, by the 

King of France and his Court, 94. 

ai>d by the Reformers of Scotland, 

9i. 
Punch, 229. His dramatic character 

in the puppet-show, 230. Drama of 

Don Juan taken from it ? ibid. 
Puppet-show of the Resurrection at 

Witney, 225. of the Creation &c. 

at Bath, 229. of Punch in the street, 

230. of tiie Prodigal Sou mentioned 

by Sbakspeare, ibid, of mysteries in 

1822. at Dieppe, 189. 

R. 

RadclifFe, Ralph, writes mysteries, 205. 
Ram Inn, Smfthfield, 209. 
Rammohim Roy on symbols of the 

Trinity, 283. 
Relics ridiculed, 87. at Hanover, 114. 
Reynard the Fox, a procession at Paris, 

170. 
Ritson's honest praise of Hearne, 144. 
Robin Hood, a play, 221, 224. in the 
May games, 223. 
Rogation days, 134. 
Rose, Bishop of Senlis, heads a religious 

dramatic procession at Paris, 158. 
Rubens's picture of St. Ignatius, 282. 

S. 

Sackville, Isabella, prioress of Clerken- 

well, 209. 
Salisbury Cathedral, Boy Bishop, 196. 
Missal, contains cuts from 

Apocryphal story, 113, 194. 
Sannazarius's poem, de Partu Virginis, 

227. 
Saracen's Head Inn, Aldersgate street, 

80. 
Saunder's, Richard, carves the giants 

in Guildhall, 267. 
Satan and the Soul, 285. 
Sepulchre, making of it in the church 

at Easter, 77. 221. described, 222. 
Serpents knee, 95. 



^8 



INDEX. 



Shakspeare mentions psalms sung to 
song tunes, 94. and mysteries per- 
formed by puppets, 230. 

Ship of extraordinary size, a pageant ih 
the Lord Mayor's Show, 258.^ 

Shooter's Hill, a Mav game there, 223> 

Singer, Mr. S. W. 183, 185. 

Skinner's Company, their remarkable 
pageant on Lord Mayor's Day, 261. 

Well, Clerkenwell, grand per- 
formances of mysteries there, 206. 
present appearance of its site, and 
inscription on its pump, 207. 

Slatyer, William, his psalms for Christ- 
mas carols, set to song tunes, 94. 

Sloane, Sir Hans, lends Bayle the 
mystery of the Acts of the Apostles, 
176. 

Smythe, William, his description in 
1575 of the Lord Mayor's Show, 246. 

Solemn mock processions to burn the 
Pope at Temple Bar described, 242. 
245. 

Southey, Mr. his mention of carols, 
100. his poetical version of the legend 
of Bishop Hatto, 233. 

Speculum Vitze Christi, a MS. 73. 

Spence, Rev. Joseph, his account of 
the mystery of the Damned Soul at 
Turin, 183. 

whereon mysteries were per- 



formed, described, 217, 

Ste evens on aroint , 139. 

Stilts worn by giants in the Lord 
Mayor's pageants, 268. and in a 
morris dance, 269. 

Strasburg, representation at the theatre 
there of religious subjects, from pic- 
tures by great masters, 190. mys- 
teries performed at the Jesuits' senii- 
nary there, 191. 

Strood, in Kent, natives born with 
tails, 280. 

Susanna and the Elders, a mystery, 
acted lately at Paris, 189. 

T. 

Theophylact, patriarch of Constanti- 
nople, exhibits the Feast of Fools 
and other farces in the Greek 
Church, 157. 

Three Dons, a mystery, acted at Ro- 
mans, 173. 

Three Kings of Cologne, a mystery, 
acted at Newcastle, 214. 

Torments of the damned, represented 
at Paris, 170. and at Florence, 281. 

Trial of Mary and Joseph, a Coventry 
mystery described, 59. 

Trinity, the, in Council, 38, 73. 

— — — Dead knell in honour of, 77, 



Trinity of St. Botolph without Alders- 
gate, account of the Brethren of, 77, 

Personifications of, 78, 81^ 85, 

revealed to St. Ignatius, 282. 

V. 

Valentine and Orson in a London pa- 
geant, 238. 

Vengeance, de N. S. J. C. a mystery, 
acted before Charles VIH. 171. 

Veximiel, grand mystery performed 
there, 172. 

Visit of Mary to Elizabeth, a Coventry 
mystery, described, 53. 

Voice of God, a mystery acted lately at 
Vienna, 188. 

U. 

Uliespiegel, or the German Rogue, 225. 
See Howleglas. 

W. 

Ward, Ned, visits the Giants in Guild- 
hall, 263. and Westminster Hall^ 266. 

Wedding Ring of Mary and Joseph, its 
miracles, &c. 117. 

Welsh Carols, 103. 

Wassail Song for St. Mary's 

Eve, 304. 

Westminster Latin Plays, 205. 

Religious Plays in the 

palace, 215. 

— Hall, Shops within it 

formerly, 268. 

Weston, Sir William, Prior of St. John 
of Jerusalem, 209. 

Whifflers, 247. 

Whore of Babylon, a comedy, by Ed- 
ward VI. 225. 

Wickerwork used to construct the Old 
London Giants, 266. and other fi- 
gures in the London pageants, 267. 

William III, in 1821, his statue in St. 
James's Square dressed, 245. The 
last procession round his statue at 
Duh]m,ibid. 

Winchester, Descent into Hell per- 
formed there, 215. 

Wintherus, a German, steals the Vir- 
gin's Wedding Ring from Chisium, 
118; it works miracles, he presents 
it to the City of Perusia, and is 
greatly honoured at his death, 119. 

Witney, in Oxfordshire, Puppet-show 
of the Resurrection there, 225, 
Y. 
York mysteries, 209. manner of theit 
performance, 210, 213. 

, pageants there, 236. 

Z. 
Zug, in Switzerland, in 1797, a Boy 
Bishop there, 199. 



Latelt/ Published, a Neiv Edition, 

III an Octavo Volume of Two Hundred and Seventy * «5*.a, 

Price Six Shillings in Boards, 

THE 

APOCRYPHAL NEW TESTAMENT, 

Being all the Gospels, Epistles, and other pieces now extant, attributed 
in the first four Centuries to Jesus Christ, his Apostles, and their 
companions, and not included in the New Testament hy its compilers. 
With Prefaces, Tables, and Notes, 

CONTENTS. 

I. The Gospel of the Birth of Mary— III. The Apostles Creed iu its ancient 

The Protevangelion — xiie Two etato, a«d in its present state. 

Gospels of the Infancy — The IV. The two Epistles of Clement to 

Gospel of Nicodemus. the Corinthians — The General 

II. The Epistles of Christ and Abgams Epistle of Barnabas — The seven 

— Epistles of Paul and Seneca — Epistles of Ignatius — The Epistle 
Epistles of Paul to the Laodiceans of Polycarp to the Philippfans — 

— Acts of Paul and Thecla. The Shepherd of Hermas. 



TO THE READER. 

Besides the Coventry Mysteries and other religious plays, 
various stories in scarce literature, and works of early painters and 
engravers are founded on narratives in the Apocryphal New Tes- 
tament ; and hence it is especially useful to collectors of pictures 
and prints, and to readers who examine curious subjects. 

Tn a theological point of view, the work being a collection of 
all the books that remain out of the immense number of spurious 
and apocryphal writings in the first four centuries, is neces- 
sarily of a mixed character. Although such pieces as are either 
proved, or uniformly believed to have been written since, are ex- 
cluded ; yet the volume is censured in one quarter for containing 
too much, — in another for not containing more. It is said that 
the Gospel of Barnabas ought to have been included. Of that 
Gospel, the Rev. Jeremiah Jones supposed that there were no 
fragments extant. He refers to the Italian MS. of it in Prince 
Eugene's Library, quoted by Toland and La Monnoy, and gives 
their citations, at the same time observing that the piece is ^ 



Mahometan imposture. From another MS. belonging to Dr. 
Monkhouse, the Rev. Joseph White, in the notes to his Bamp- 
ton Lectures, produces a long extract. Sale, who in his transla<- 
tion of the Koran, notices this Gospel, likewise had a MS. of it, 
which after his death was purchased by the Rev. Edm. Calamy, 
who permitted a copy to be taken by Mr. John Nickolls, the 
portrait collector : on his decease it became the property of Mr. 
Joseph Ames, author of the History of Printing, and is now in 
my possession. The authors mentioned, show, that if any por- 
tion of this be the remains of the ancient Gospel, it is obscured 
by Mahometan interpolation ; while their extracts suffice to satisfy 
the inquisitive concerning its tendency, and to convince the rea- 
sonable, that its claim to be considered a production of the first 
four centuries is not properly supported. 

Concerning the Gospels included in the Apocryphal New Tes- 
tament, it may be remarked that they rank with such pieces in 
the Old Testament Apocrypha as the book of To hit ; wherein 
it is related that his son married the widow of seven husbands, all 
of whom were slain on their nuptial night by a devil that was in 
love with her ; but who was himself finally discomfited, by the 
eighth bridegroom fumigating the wedding chamber with the 
burning heart and liver of a fish ; the which smelly when the evil 
spirit had smelled, he fled into the utmost parts of Eg2/pt. — 
Tobit, viii. S. 

The Epistles of Clement, Barnabas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, 
and the Shepherd of Hermas, are of higher character than 
any books in the Apocrypha to the Old Testament. Eusebius, 
Jerome, and other ancient writers record, that most of these 
Epistles were publicly read in the churches of the first ages ; 
and they were all translated and published by Archbishop Wake, 
under the title of " The Genuine Epistles of the Apostolical 
Fathers ; being, together with the Holy Scriptures of the New 
Testament, a complete collection of the most primitive antiquity 
for about a hundred and fifty years after Christ." 

After careful examining the contents, with reference to the 
title, it will be found, on the authority of the Rev. Jeremiah 
Jones and Archbishop Wake, that every piece inserted in the 
volume ought to appear in it ; and that no piece fairly presumable 
to be a production of the first four centuries is omitted. 

W. Hone. 



J. M'Creery, Tooks-Court, 
Chancery- Lane, London. 



